Quincy Jones quotes

Quincy Jones is an American musician, composer, and record producer, highly influential in jazz, pop, and film music. His career spans over seven decades and includes collaborations with icons like Michael Jackson and Frank Sinatra. He has become one of the most respected and decorated figures in the history of popular music. Here are 58 of his quotes:

I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because it's not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever.

Quincy Jones

I got in the school band and the school choir. It all hit me like a ton of bricks, everything just came out. I played percussion for a while, and stayed after school forever just tinkering around with different things, the clarinets and the violins.

Quincy Jones

I was inspired by a lot of people when I was young. Every band that came through town, to the theater, or the dance hall. I was at every dance, every night club, listened to every band that came through, because in those days we didn't have MTV, we didn't have television.

Quincy Jones

We got into all the trouble you could ever imagine. We figured that if the Jones boys and all the gangsters ran Chicago, we had our own territory now. All the stores, all the crime, we were in charge of everything, my stepbrother and my brother.

Quincy Jones

We stole a box of honey jars one time and went out in the woods and took care of the whole box. I don't think I touched honey again for 20 years. I never wanted to see honey again.

Quincy Jones

Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. 'Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it's done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.'

Quincy Jones

Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing.

Quincy Jones

It's easy to get next to music theory, especially between your peers and music classes and so forth. You just pay attention. I had a good ear, so I realized that printed music was just about reminding you what to play.

Quincy Jones

I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.

Quincy Jones

I went with Lionel Hampton for three years. Out of that came a trip to Europe.

Quincy Jones

When I was about five or seven years old my mother was placed in a mental institution and so we were with our father who worked very hard, and we had to figure a lot of things out.

Quincy Jones

It's amazing how much trouble you can get in when you don't have anything else to do.

Quincy Jones

If you started in New York you were dealing with the biggest guys in the world. You're dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything. We got more experience working in Seattle.

Quincy Jones

Music was the one thing I could control. It was the one world that offered me freedom. When I played music, my nightmares ended. My family problems disappeared. I didn't have to search for answers. The answers lay no further than the bell of my trumpet and my scrawled, pencilled scores. Music made me full, strong, popular, self-reliant and cool.

Quincy Jones

I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, "Ain't that the truth."

Quincy Jones

All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls.

Quincy Jones

It slaps your dignity just right. I loved the idea of these proud, dignified black men, and I saw the older ones wounded, and it wounded me ten times as much because I couldn't stand seeing them hurt like this.

Quincy Jones

I'm just a musician and a record producer.

Quincy Jones

I was the most subtle person in the world.

Quincy Jones

My son is a hip-hop producer.

Quincy Jones

I was reading Omar Khayyam, Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, L. Ron Hubbard, all sorts of philosophy. Bebop cats are like that. Curious. I wanted to know about everything.

Quincy Jones

Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.

Quincy Jones