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Art & Creativity Quote by Gordon Getty

"I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas"

About this Quote

A billionaire calling his own inheritance a "curse" is a neat bit of self-indictment disguised as relief. Getty frames wealth not as a prize but as a contaminant: something that can deform character, scramble priorities, and turn family life into a slow-motion legal brief. The line "Not all my family have" lands like a quiet aftershock, pointing to the Getty clan's well-publicized traumas and feuds without naming them, letting the audience supply the tabloid footnotes.

Then comes the escape hatch: music. Getty casts art as antidote, a discipline that drags him out of the dynastic funhouse and back into a world where effort, taste, and time matter. "Music is all about civilization" is doing double duty. It's a sincere confession of what art gives him, and it's a subtle rebranding move: the tycoon wants to be read less as a custodian of capital and more as a custodian of culture.

The most revealing pivot is "something worthwhile" followed by "It's all about ideas". That insistence is a moral alibi and a claim to legitimacy. In a culture suspicious of inherited power, attaching yourself to "ideas" is a way to argue you belong in the realm of meaning, not just money. It also smuggles in a hierarchy: finance is brute force; music is refinement. The subtext isn't just that music saved him. It's that art is his proof of personhood, a way to dodge the curse by becoming someone who can be judged on more than a surname.

Quote Details

TopicMusic
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Getty, Gordon. (2026, January 16). I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/ive-managed-to-dodge-the-curse-not-all-my-family-95782/

Chicago Style
Getty, Gordon. "I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/ive-managed-to-dodge-the-curse-not-all-my-family-95782/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I've managed to dodge the curse. Not all my family have. Of course, music helped me - music is all about civilization, about something worthwhile. It's all about ideas." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/ive-managed-to-dodge-the-curse-not-all-my-family-95782/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Gordon Getty (born December 20, 1934) is a Businessman from USA.

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