Iconic Quotes

“ICONIC QUOTES”:

“Up front, I should make it clear that I am not a conventionally religious man. Rather, I have been guided by a Voice that has been inside my head all my life. This Voice, takes many forms, and has guided me with a spirit and sureness I’ve tried my best to obey.” – Barry White (“Barry White Love Unlimited”)

“I’d put Rashida to bed and plow on, keeping the television on to occupy my conscious mind and letting my subconscious mind work, scoring with or without piano, in ink. That’s where the subconscious mind kicks in, when you push the conscious mind aside. You’re getting out of your own way and letting God do the work – God and Nadia Boulanger.” – Quincy Jones (The Autobiography of Quincy Jones)

“Selfishness binds and blocks. Every loving and unselfish thought has in it the germ of success.” – Florence Scovel Shinn (“The Wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn”)

“Even with the precise amounts of identical ingredients, you would probably not be able to perfectly recreate the same flavors and textures as I can,” he said. “Because in my food, you can always find my kokoro (heart) – Nobu Chef: Nobuyuki “Nobu” Matsuhisa

“I mean all them young cats along the Street with their horns wrapped in a stocking and they say “Pay me first, pops, then I’ll play a note for you,” and you know that’s not the way any good music ever got made. You got to like playing pretty things if you’re ever going to be any good blowing your horn. These young cats want to make money first and the hell with the music. And then they want to carve everyone else because they’re full of malice, and all they want to do is show you up, and any old way will do as long as it’s different from the way you played it before. So you get all them weird chords which don’t mean nothing, and first people get curious about it just because its new, but soon they get tired of it because it’s really no good and you got no melody to remember and no beat to dance to. So they’re all poor again and nobody is working, and that’s what that modern malice done for you.” – Louis Armstrong 1948

“If you’re going to succeed, you need a vision, one that’s affordable, practical, and fills a customer need. Then, go for it. Don’t worry too much about the details. Don’t second-guess your creativity. Avoid over analyzing the new project’s potential. Most importantly, don’t strategize about the long term too much.” – Michael Bloomberg (“Bloomberg on Bloomberg”)

“All the musicians moan about the level of American popular music, but all they do is moan about it. They wouldn’t think of going into it to improve it. Well, I’m going into it. I don’t want my band advertised as a jazz band, even though it is. I don’t want to scare the kids off. I want to try to do something about popular music.” – Quincy Jones (1960)

“Often I won’t quantize at all. I do believe that you can take away… You can make something very unlistenable by quantizing it too much. I play a lot of stuff by hand and don’t quantize it, and very often it sounds better that way. Unquantized rhythms work better when used next to quantized rhythms and vice versa.” – William Orbit (while working with Madonna)

He wants the records he makes to stand out and intrigue the fans long after they first listen. He ensures this, he says, by putting what he calls his “sprinkles” into the mix. He explains, “People come to me on the street and say, ‘I hear something different every time I listen to your record.’ That’s what I like to hear — that’s the sprinkles.” “I really take a lot of time on each song and make sure it’s okay – I’m my worst critic. I want to make sure it’s right.” – DR. DRE

“The power of music is such that when you hear a song from ten years ago, if it has that sound of distinction, you can remember who you were with, what happened to her, how it went right, if it went wrong and why. Music can pull memories out of years ago like they happened yesterday. Our recorded treasure is truly the soundtrack diary of our lives” – BARRY WHITE (“Barry White Love Unlimited”)

“Anything forced into manifestation through personal will, is always “ill-got” and has “ever bad success.” Man is admonished, “My will be done not thine,” and the curious thing is, man always gets just what he desires when he does relinquish personal will, thereby enabling Infinite Intelligence to work through him” -Florence Scovel Shinn (“The Wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn”)

“Think about the singers you love the most, and you should recognize that they all have something in common – that sound of distinction. In 1965, the first time I heard Levi Stubbs and the Four Tops’ version of “Ask the Lonely,” I was driving and had to pull over, stop, and crank up the car radio. I couldn’t believe it. The sound of distinction! Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, and Michael Jackson have it as well. Marvin Gaye had it big time. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, the Coasters, and the Drifters, they all had it. – Barry White (“Barry White Love Unlimited”)

“When we started “Thriller”, the first day at Westlake (the studio on Santa Monica Boulevard where the album was recorded), we were all there and Quincy Jones (the producer) walked in followed by me and Michael and Rod Temperton and some of the other people.” Quincy turned to us and said, ‘OK guys, we’re here to save the recording industry.’ Now that’s a pretty big responsibility – but he meant it. And that’s why those albums, and especially ‘Thriller’, sound so incredible. The basic thing is, everybody who was involved gave 150 per cent … Quincy’s like a director of a movie and I’m like a directer of photography, and it’s Quincy’s job to cast it.” – Bruce Swedien (engineer on Off The Wall, Thriller, and Bad albums) (“In the Studio with Michael Jackson”)

“In the world of pop, there was only one Frank Sinatra. He had the sound of distinction for decades. When he released his version of “New York, New York,” that type of song had really come and gone, but Frank was so great, he was able to reinstate the popularity of an entire genre of music. And did it over and over again, right up until the moment he left us” – Barry White (“Barry White Love Unlimited”)

“That’s why very few Rap albums have been put alongside classic albums by Led Zeppelin, The Who, or The Rolling Stones. The science of making an album is that you have some records that fit the standards of the time to show that you can do it, then you have songs on the album that are experimental or are things that you believe in are challenging to the listeners. If you do an album and just hope to look for everybody’s approval and make sure that everybody is comfortable with it, you’re selling your sh– out.” – Chuck D (of Public Enemy)(“Fight the Power”)

“You just have to make your plan, stick to it and go forward. Where I come from it’s like the crab-in-the-bucket theory. They won’t let a crab get out because they’ll pull him back down. You have to ignore all that and go forward. We wanted to be the biggest band in the world, and here we are 10 to 12 years later, and we are, because we wanted it. And that’s the same thing you have to do. You have to want it and don’t look back, and don’t pay attention to what people say.” – Bono (of U2 speaking to Chuck D of Public Enemy)(“Fight the Power”)

“Albums are meant to be put in a time capsule, sealed up, and sent into space so that when you look back you can say that’s the total reflection of that time.” – Ice T (“Fight the Power”)

“Whoever listens to my music intelligently will see my life transparently revealed.” – Gustav Mahler (“The Great Composers”)

“I abhor imitation and I abhor the familiar.” – Sergei Prokofiev (“The Great Composers”)

“By studying my music you will find the truth about me as a man and as a artist.” – Dmitri Shostakovich (“The Great Composers”)

“The artist who does not feel completely satisfied by elegant lines, by harmonious colors, and by a beautiful succession of chords does not understand the art of music.” – Camille Saint-Saens (“The Great Composers”)

“Even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is truly a blessed gift of God.” – Felix Mendelssohn (“The Great Composers”)

“There is no musical rule that I have not willingly sacrificed to dramatic effect.” – Christoph Willibald Gluck (“The Great Composers”)

“Handel understands effect better than any of us when he chooses, he strikes like a thunderbolt.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (“The Great Composers”)

“The expression of thought, of sentiment, of the passions, must be the true aim of music.” – Jean Philippe Rameau (“The Great Composers”)

“The end of all good music is to affect the soul.” – Claudio Monteverdi (“The Great Composers”)

“Michael’s father did the contracts, and he would only give me a $30,000 advance! That’s nothing! Absolutely nothing! And he tried to pay me through Jackson 5, Inc., which he controlled. I said, “No way! Not a chance!” I refused and I insisted that I get paid straight from Epic Records. The contract also said that if I didn’t get two Top 30 records, they’d get somebody else to do the next record. Man, please! We had four Top 5 records. Two of them, “Don’t stop’ til You Get Enough” and “Rock with You” were No. 1 – they sold 2 million a piece! Even though the advance was nothing for an album like this, the real money is in the royalties. So it’s okay I made it up on the back end. Despite the objections by my best friend (music executive and producer) Clarence Avante, Joe Jackson refused to pay me more than a $30,000 advance for Thriller. During the entire 80’s, which we literally owned, this man never offered one kind or appreciative word, and I couldn’t care less. Not even a little bit.” – Quincy Jones (on Joe Jackson, Michael Jackson’s father, from the book “Q on Producing”)

“You good precedes you; it gets there before you do. But how to catch up with your good? For you must have ears that hear, eyes that see, or it will escape you.” – Florence Scovel Shinn (“The Wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn”)

“If you want anything to happen, you must bring about a change in your own mental outlook, whereupon your outer experience will automatically change to correspond. When people expect a dramatic miracle from the outside, they are really hoping to change conditions without changing themselves.” – Emmet Fox (Find and Use Your Inner Power)

“Whatever you experience in your life is really but the outpicturing of your own thoughts and beliefs. Now, you can change these thoughts and beliefs, and then the outer picture must change too. The outer picture cannot change until you change your thought.” – Emmet Fox (Find and Use Your Inner Power)

“Therefore I say unto you. What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” – Mark 11:24

“Let Things Go. Do your best, put all of your energy in, and then you gotta let it go. If you become too attached to something, that can block your success. At the same time, don’t rest on your laurels. Don’t plant a seed, then sit on top of it to protect it – you’ll keep it from growing.” – LL COOLJ (Men’s Fitness)

“Celebrate the Success Of Others. You get in life what you give out. If you want the world to celebrate your success, you have to celebrate the success of the world. And use others’ success as motivation and inspiration to go after your dreams.” – LL COOLJ (Men’s Fitness)

“The aim of art is to project an inner vision into the world, to state in aesthetic creation the deepest psychic and personal experiences of a human being. It is to enable those experiences to be intelligible and generally recognized within the total framework of an ideal world.” – BRUCE LEE (TAO of JEET KUNE DO)

“Do not run away; let go. Do not seek, for it will come when least expected.” – BRUCE LEE (TAO of JEET KUNE DO)

“Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-consciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.” – BRUCE LEE (TAO of JEET KUNE DO)