Miles Davis Quotes

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

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.

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.

It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.

In music, silence is more important than sound.

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.

Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

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.

A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.

If you're not nervous then you're not paying attention.

We don't play to be seen. I'm addicted to music, not audiences.

You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

First you imitate, then you innovate.

Always listen for what you can leave out.

To keep creating you have to be about change.

Don't worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.

Some day I'm gonna call me up on the phone, so when I answer, I can tell myself to shut up.

Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is.

I'll play it first and figure out what it's called later.

People will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype.

My future starts when I wake up every morning.

For me, music and life are all about style.

You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.

Bebop didn't have the humanity of Duke Ellington. It didn't even have that recognizable thing. Bird and Diz were great, fantastic, challenging — but they weren't sweet.

I can tell whether a person can play just by the way he stands.

Music is the framework around the silence.

In other words, an instrument should be an extension of you; it's supposed to sound like you - the way you walk, the way you dress, you know.

The thing to judge in any jazz artist is, does the man project and does he have ideas.

My ego only needs a good rhythm section

It takes a long time to sound like yourself.

White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything - you know what I mean?

What's swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don't have to ask anybody if that's good music or not. You can always feel it.

I like Stan [Getz], because he has so much patience, the way he plays those melodies - other people can't get nothing out of a song, but he can, which takes a lot of imagination.

At least one day out of the year all musicans should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.

I don't pay no attention to what critics say about me, the good or the bad. The toughest critic I got is myself...and I'm too vain to play anything I think is bad.

It took me twenty years study and practice to work up to what I wanted to play in this performance. How can she expect to listen five minutes and understand it?

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

I never thought Jazz was meant to be a museum piece like other dead things once considered artistic.

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.

My father's rich, my momma's good looking. Right? And I can play the Blues. I've never suffered and don't intend to suffer.

There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.

You have to practice for a long time before you can learn to sound like yourself

It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play.

I know what I've done for music, but don't call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.

All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.

Always look ahead, but never look back.