Dave Brubeck's Quotes

It's like a whole orchestra, the piano for me.

My own Brubeck Institute in California is turning out fantastic young jazz players, and I know great things will happen.

The first choral music I remember hearing was Handel's 'Messiah' when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast it over the radio.

The worst thing about the life of a jazz musician on the road is getting to the gig. Once you're there and playing, it's marvelous.

We don't know the power that's within our own bodies.

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

When I was first aware that I couldn't read music I didn't know I couldn't read because I could play the music that was in front of me.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

After the Second World War, I returned to California to study composition with Darius Milhaud, who wrote wonderful works like 'Le Boeuf sur le Toit' and 'La Cretion du Monde.' I especially enjoy his work for two pianos, 'Scaramouche.'

Do you think Duke Ellington didn't listen to Debussy? Louis Armstrong loved opera, did you know that? Name me a jazz pianist who wasn't influenced by European music!

I got a poster from Columbia Records, and there's Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, Ellington, Count Basie - everybody in that poster has died, I'm the only one left. And great players like Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan, it's hard to believe they're gone because we were all so close. But I believe in the future and the tradition will go on.

I have more energy at the end than I do at the beginning. You can be so beat up that you can scarcely walk on stage but when you get to the piano the excitement kicks in, you forget about being tired.

I knew I wanted to write on religious themes when I was a GI in World War II. I saw and experienced so much violence that I thought I could express my outrage best with music.

I played a lot of sports and it's the plays in basketball that weren't worked out that are the ones that are just fantastic that you remember. We don't know the power that's within our own bodies.

In order for a man to be truly evil, he must be a woman.

It's easy to idealize someone that you don't know.

It's funny how most activists are pacifists.

Live every day as if it is your last, and you'll be correct sooner than you otherwise would be.

My to-do list is so long that it doesn't have an end; it has an event horizon.

Never question the relevance of truth, but always question the truth of relevance.

'Programming' is a four-letter word.

Something is always simple until you try it.

Temporary solutions often become permanent problems.

The difference between being able to understand something and inventing it in the first place... is called genius.

The entire universe is working against me. I can't believe the entire universe could be that foolish!

The people who actually do things always suffer the slings and arrows of those who don't.

The world is real. Consciousness is the illusion.

Things always look better when you haven't seen them.

Think Tank, noun: The shower.

Time is a resource whose supply is inversely proportional to its demand.

When anarchy is declared, the first thing we do, let's kill all the anarchists.

When trying to locate something, search your mind first.

When you are finished with it, put it back in the first place that you looked for it.

When you talk to yourself, at least you know that someone is listening.

Whoever invented double clicking should be shot in the head! Twice!

I wonder if those people shown protesting the deployment of nuclear weapons to western Europe during the Reagan era are feeling appropriately stupid today. 'Please don't take away our precious Soviet Union! - We demand the annihilation of all life on Earth!'

It's a bit odd that nobody seems to be using the correct technical term to describe organized Islamic terrorists. They are not a faction of a religion or a social movement. They are a cult. A suicide cult.

The only people I've ever heard saying that disagreeing with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld is un-American or treasonous are people who disagree with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

Yeah, computers are going to take over the programming business because they have become so fast recently that they can solve the Halting Problem in five seconds flat.

You usually have to wait for that which is worth waiting for.

Why are people unemployed? Because there is no work. Why is there no work? Because people are not buying products and services. Why are people not buying products and services? Because they have no money. Why do people have no money? Because they are unemployed.

It's hardware that makes a machine fast. It's software that makes a fast machine slow.

It's funny how social activists usually protest against the only things that have a credible chance of achieving the activists' goals.

Silence is a statement that is open to gross misinterpretation.

Never underestimate the power of a simple tool.

The only thing that is obscene is censorship.

Geez, all that money we waste on space exploration; just think how many bombs that would buy!

Liberalism is financed by the dividends from Conservatism.

Supermarket automatic doors open for me; therefore, I am.

Organizations like the ACLU fought and won the good fight back in the 1960's, but it's clear that nowadays they've run out of useful things to do since they now spend most of their time defending the scum of the Earth from getting what they rightly deserve.

If the shoe fits, it is probably worn out.

Nothing surpasses the beauty and elegance of a bad idea.

Now is the time for all good men to run like hell.

The Thought Police: To censor and protect.

When shooting in the dark, it is a good idea to use a machine gun.

1 + 1 = 2. Everything else is derived.

Anything on paper is obsolete!

Don't judge a book by its thickness either.

Don't trust anyone who has been in school for the past 24 consecutive years.

Even IBM can't stand in the way of progress... for more than a decade.

Fighting a war on terrorism is like fighting against crime. We can never hope to eradicate crime, so we shouldn't bother fighting it.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his ability.

I think; therefore, I am the center of the universe.

If I gave a damn what other people think of me, I would be more like other people.