Miles Davis
I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.Collection: Morning
Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.Collection: Time
Do not fear mistakes. There are none.Collection: Fear
Space music'd be really something... but they don't have no gravity up there. You couldn't have no downbeat!Collection: Space
For me, music and life are all about style.Collection: Music
It's always been a gift with me, hearing music the way I do. I don't know where it comes from, it's just there and I don't question it.Collection: Music
If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!
Don't play what's there, play what's not there.
A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it.
I'll play it first and tell you what it is later.
The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.
It was Jimi Hendrix that I first got into when Betty Mabry turned me on to him.
Prince is from the school of James Brown, and I love James Brown because of all the great rhythms he plays.
Prince got some Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix and Sly in him, also, even Little Richard. He's a mixture of all those guys and Duke Ellington.
The music I was really listening to in 1968 was James Brown, the great guitar player Jimi Hendrix, and a new group... Sly and the Family Stone, led by Sly Stewart from San Francisco.
I have to change. It's like a curse.
He comes in on the beat and plays on top of the beat. I think when Prince makes love, he hears drums instead of Ravel.
When I'm playing, I'm never through. It's unfinished. I like to find a place to leave for someone else to finish it. That's where the high comes in.
Jimi Hendrix came from the blues, like me. We understood each other right away because of that. He was a great blues guitarist.
You'd be surprised. Drummers ape each other. The way every rock n' roll record sounds like something else but not all together. Everything other drummers play, if you're playing drums, they all hear.
I know what I've done for music, but don't call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.
Prince might be bringing that low sound back, because he has that double bass.
When you do anything too long, you either wear it out or lose interest.
You can dominate a game if you dominate on the line... We're just going to have to go out there and work hard and blow people off the ball, and let our runners do what they do best.
Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.Collection: Attitude
It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.Collection: Play
A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.Collection: Painting
In music, silence is more important than sound.Collection: Silence
It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.Collection: Change
It takes a long time to sound like yourself.Collection: Long
First you imitate, then you innovate.Collection: Firsts
If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow.Collection: Nice
Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slaveryCollection: Ignorance
If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.Collection: Play
Music is the framework around the silence.Collection: Music
Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.Collection: Worry
It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play.Collection: Play
See, if you put a musician in a place where he has to do something different from what he does all the time, then he can do that - but he's got to think differently in order to do it. He's got to play above what he knows - far above it. I've always told the musicians in my band to play what they know and then play above that. Because then anything can happen, and that's where great art and music happens.Collection: Art
My future starts when I wake up every morning.Collection: Good Morning
If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can't be trusted.Collection: Art
If you're not nervous then you're not paying attention.Collection: Attention
You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.Collection: Play
Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.Collection: Brother
I'll play it first and figure out what it's called later.Collection: Play
Audiences - they like colour, you know. I can go out there wearing a red suit, man, and they'll say I'm out of sight ... I think they should be educated; you should always drop something on an audience ... When you get in front of an audience, you should try to give 'em something. After all, they're there looking at you like this. You can't go out and give 'em nothing.Collection: Men
I don't like to hear someone put down dixieland. Those people who say there's no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don't know.Collection: Stupid
Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that he should stop using it.Collection: Uncles
Do not be afraid of errors. There are no errors.Collection: Errors
With "We Are The World," I can't even eat when I watch that on television. If I'm eatin' some food, I have to put it down. I feel very strongly about that.Collection: World
We're not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got 'em, so they can keep 'em.Collection: Play