Miles Davis Quotes

I hate how white people always try to take credit for something after they discover it. Like it wasn't happening before they found out about it — which most times is always late, and they didn't have nothing to do with it happening.

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

Naw, I wasn't going to sell my principles for them. I wanted to be accepted as a good musician and that didn't call for no grinning, but just being able to play the horn good. And that's what I did then and now. Critics can take that or leave it.

But if I got my mind on something about my band or something else, well, hell, no, I don’t want to talk. When I’m working I’m concentrating. I bet you if I was a doctor sewing on some son of a bitch’s heart, they wouldn’t want me to talk.

I’m always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up in the morning and see the light.

I remember one time - it might have been a couple times - at the Fillmore East in 1970, I was opening for this sorry-ass cat named Steve Miller. Steve Miller didn't have his shit going for him, so I'm pissed because I got to open for this non-playing motherfucker just because he had one or two sorry-ass records out. So I would come late and he would have to go on first and then we got there we smoked the motherfucking place, everybody dug it.

I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me “a legend”.(…) A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I’m still doing it.

Bad music is what will ruin music, not the instruments musicians choose to play.

The only thing I'm interested in is the music and the musicians. I don't acknowledge applause 'cause I'm giving them something. They're not giving me anything with their applause. Can I write that down?

I hate how white people always try to take credit for something after they discover it. Like it wasn't happening before they found out about it — which most times is always late, and they didn't have nothing to do with it happening. Then, they try to take all the credit, try to cut everybody black out.

El conocimiento, el saber, es libertad, mientras que la ignorancia es esclavitud, y yo, simplemente, no podía creer que alguien estuviera tan cerca de la libertad y no se aprovechase de su buena suerte.

Try taking the fucking horn out of your mouth.

A lot of people ask me where music is going today. I think it's going in short phrases. If you listen, anybody with an ear can hear that. Music is always changing. It changes because of the times and the technology that's available, the material that things are made of, like plastic cars instead of steel. So when you hear an accident today it sounds different, not all the metal colliding like it was in the forties and fifties. Musicians pick up sounds and incorporate that into their playing, so the music that they make will be different.

Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.

If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.