Zooey Deschanel Quotes

The word [jazz] never lost its association with those New Orleans bordellos. In the 1920s I used to try to convince Fletcher Henderson that we ought to call what we were doing 'Negro music'. But it's too late for that now.

An accurate knowledge of the past of a country is necessary for everyone who would understand its present, and who desires to judge of its future.

You can only judge anything that happened in the times, in the times that that happened.

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.

I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today.

In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.

I got history solidly under my belt, reading Russian history and biographies. I couldn't change the facts. I could only play with how the people might have responded to the facts of their lives.

I'm an Australian, and when I grew up much of my influences were American - blues music and country music, all that sort of thing.

Music is part of history, and our history has lessons that cannot be separated from our greatest music.

I had the good fortune to be able to take a course with Margaret Mead. I had a fabulous art course, where it was explained to me that nothing exists in a vacuum, that everything is a result of the period in which it's done - the economics, the sociology, the politics, all sewn together. That was a very important lesson.

In order to appreciate a great man, we must know his surroundings. We must understand the scope of the drama in which he played - the part he acted - and we must also know his audience.

I believe that nothing is more important to our ability to effectively address our present than understanding the lessons learned from those who have come before us.

I was listening to music long before rock 'n roll.

When you look back on music history, it falls into these neat periods, but of course, the period you yourself are living through seems totally scattered and chaotic.

Genes cannot tell us how to catalogue or comprehend human diversity. Environments can, cultures can, geographies can, histories can.

A good history covers not only what was done, but the thought that went into the action. You can read the history of a country through its actions.

The present enables us to understand the past, not the other way round.

The Internet drives you to an immediate resolution of symptoms but may make it harder to get to the essence of the problem. It’s easier to know what people are saying, but the question is whether diplomats have time to connect that with its deeper historical context.

No political event can be judged outside of the era and the circumstances in which it took place.

American music comes from the same tree, but sometimes we get to these places in history where we forget where things come from, and they get compartmentalized.

Anybody who thinks the lute just came out of a vacuum doesn't know the history.

The reason 'Fireball' is my favorite album of that period is that without 'Fireball,' we would never have been able to make 'Machine Head.'

History informs where we are and how we got here.

There's substance to the point that sociological information is new. We have five years of information to weigh against 2,000 years of history or more.

If culture was a railroad, I can see the tracks running from the Spirituals to the Hip Hop Nation.