A biography for Quincy Joneshasn’t been written yet.
“I'm just a musician and a record producer.”
“I hope that on my tombstone it says 'Born 1933, died 2043.' I hope that's my legacy.”
“Every country can be defined through their food, their music and their language. That's the soul of a country.”
“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.'”
“I was the most subtle person in the world.”
“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.”
“When you work with Ray Charles, Billy Eckstine and Frank Sinatra, and you tell them to jump without a net, you better know what you're talking about. Thank God I was ready for it.”
“You make your mistakes to learn how to get to the good stuff.”
“We were in the heart of the ghetto in Chicago during the Depression, and every block - it was probably the biggest black ghetto in America - every block also is the spawning ground practically for every gangster, black and white, in America too.”
“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.”
“I never felt like I had a mother.”
“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.”
“All guys get into music because they love music and they also want to get the girls.”
“I was married for 36 years but now I'm free.”
“We spent most of our life almost like street rats just running around the street until we were ten years old.”
“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.'”
“My grandmother had this high-tech security system - a rusty nail she used to lock the door.”
“Young people should travel, and they don't. You can't know if you don't go.”
“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.”
“I lost my mother when I was 7 and they put her in a mental hospital. My brother and I watched her being taken away in a strait jacket. That's something you never forget. And my stepmother was like in the movie 'Precious.' I couldn't handle it. So I said to myself, 'I don't have a mother. I don't need one. I'm going to let music be my mother.'”