Miles Davis Quotes about Music

Music is the framework around the silence.

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

If you understood everything I say, you'd be me!

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

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

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

To keep creating you have to be about change.

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

Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!

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

In improvisation, there are no mistakes.

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

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.

Always look ahead, but never look back.

For me, music and life are all about style.

You can't play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn't played

...people will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype. They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing so they don't look unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person is doing something they don't understand...That's what I thought was happening when Ornette hit town.

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

A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it.

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

Music is an addiction.

There are no wrong notes.

In Europe, they like everything you do. The mistakes and everything. That's a little bit too much.

I don't care if a dude is purple with green breath as long as he can swing.