26 Quotes by Paul Desmond

I was overlooked long before anyone knew who I was.

I would also like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

We used to get on planes, and they'd ask who we were, and we'd say, 'The Dave Brubeck Quartet', and they'd say, 'Who?' In later years they'd say, 'Oh', which amounts to the same thing.

I felt a responsibility to all other newsletter publishers.

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted it to sound like a dry martini.

The qualities in music I considered most important -- and still do -- were beauty, simplicity, originality, discrimination, and sincerity,

Sometimes I get the feeling that there are orgies going on all over new York City, and somebody says, `Let's call Desmond,' and somebody else says, 'Why bother? He's probably home reading the Encyclopedia Britannica.'

Our basic audience begins with creaking elderly types of twenty-three and above.