It slaps your dignity just right. I loved the idea of these proud, dignified black men, and I saw the older ones wounded, and it wounded me ten times as much because I couldn't stand seeing them hurt like this.
Interpretation
This quote expresses deep empathy for the suffering of proud individuals, particularly within the context of respect and dignity.
Quincy Jones reflects on the emotional impact of witnessing the pain of proud black men, emphasizing how their dignity is affected by societal wounds. He conveys a strong sense of compassion and connection, illustrating how the struggles of others can resonate deeply within us, especially when we cherish their dignity.
In practice
During a speech on social justice, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of recognizing and addressing the dignity of all individuals affected by injustice.
Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know?
Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
When you produce an album, you're dealing with it theatrically. It has to have a structure, and the inner response to that is that the ear loves it.
You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.
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.
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.
Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?
The way you start to break down systemic racism is to start building individual relationships with people who are not like you.
I feel that we Germans are spending less and less time talking to each other. And even less time listening to each other.
If fear is the great enemy of intimacy, love is its true friend.
Commitment, by its nature, frees us from ourselves and, while it stands us in opposition to some, it joins us with others similarly committed. Commitment moves us from the mirror trap of the self absorbed with the self to the freedom of a community of shared values.
I don't wait for people to give me respect. I always give them respect.
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