Quincy Jones quotes

Born
March 14, 1933, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Died
November 3, 2024.

Occupation
Record producer, musician.

Quincy Jones was an American record producer and musician.

It’s amazing how much trouble you can get in when you don’t have anything else to do.
– Quincy Jones

I like all music. The only music I don’t like is bad music.
– Quincy Jones

I’m just a musician and a record producer.
– Quincy Jones

I don’t ever want to grow up. That’s boring.
– Quincy Jones

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

I’m Pisces with Leo rising. The Pisces part is the dreamer. The Leo says, ‘Let’s execute.’
– Quincy Jones

Bebop and hip-hop, in so many ways, they’re connected. A lot of rappers remind me so much of bebop guys in terms of improvisation, beats and rhymes. My dream is to see hip-hop incorporated in education. You’ve got the youth of the world in the palm of your hand.
– 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

I don’t remember feeling love.
– Quincy Jones

My grandmother had this high-tech security system – a rusty nail she used to lock the door.
– Quincy Jones

Cherish your mistakes, and you won’t keep making them over and over again. It’s the same with heartbreaks and girls and everything else. Cherish them, and they’ll put some wealth in you.
– Quincy Jones

I believe in astrology as much as I do in genetics.
– Quincy Jones

We spent most of our life almost like street rats just running around the street until we were ten years old.
– Quincy Jones

I travel like a maniac. I travel more than anyone I know. I love learning the languages.
– Quincy Jones

A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer – you put a great song on top of that, you’re really in great shape!
– Quincy Jones

Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That’s the soul of a country.
– Quincy Jones

When I was 13, I started working in a nightclub with Ray Charles. That’s the greatest school in the world, the school of the streets. Ray taught me how to read in Braille. He was only two years older than me, but it was like he was 100 years older.
– Quincy Jones

I live on the Internet.
– Quincy Jones

Working with kids in Soweto in South Africa, it’s rough out there. But the bottom line is you’ve got to go to know. In Cambodia, there are 10,000 landmines. Same in Afghanistan, same in Colombia. I’m totally addicted to traveling.
– Quincy Jones

Frank Sinatra took me to a whole new planet. I worked with him until he passed away in ’98. He left me his ring. I never take it off. Now, when I go to Sicily, I don’t need a passport. I just flash my ring.
– Quincy Jones

My earliest memories are being pinned to a fence with a switchblade.
– Quincy Jones

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 didn’t understand key signatures or anything, you know. I’d say silly things at the top of a trumpet part like, ‘Note, when you play B naturals, make the B naturals a half step lower because they sound funny if they’re B naturals.’ And some guy said: ‘Idiot, just put a flat on the third line and it’s a key signature, you know?’
– 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’ve met every freak in the business.
– Quincy Jones

Few rappers realize the genre sprang from West African griots through Delta slave songs to jazz poetry and the comedic trash talk of ‘the dozens.’
– Quincy Jones

Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
– Quincy Jones

If architecture is frozen music then music must be liquid architecture.
– Quincy Jones

Without the Fender bass, there’d be no rock n’ roll or no Motown. The electric guitar had been waiting ’round since 1939 for a nice partner to come along. It became an electric rhythm section, and that changed everything.
– 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

You make your mistakes to learn how to get to the good stuff.
– Quincy Jones

Everybody, no matter what vocation they’re looking at, should add music as an essential to their curriculum. Music can be a very important part of your soul and your growth as a human being. It’s so powerful.
– Quincy Jones

I think the attraction of ‘American Idol’ is about the basic human nature attitude that is, ‘We can put you up there. But we can take you down.’
– Quincy Jones

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

My father was a carpenter, a very good carpenter. He also worked for the Jones boys. They were not family members, we weren’t related at all. They started the policy racket in Chicago, and they had the five and dime store.
– Quincy Jones