Quotes from Miles Davis

I always listen to what I can leave out.

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.

If you don't know what to play, play nothing.

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.

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

Do not fear mistakes, there are none.

WE WERE ALL UP IN THAT SHIT LIKE A MUTHAFUCKA. IT'S CLEANER THAN A BROKE DICK DOG.

Philly Joe was a bitch. If he'd been a lawyer and white, he would have been president of the United States, because in order to get there you gotta talk fast and carry a lot of bullshit with you; Philly had it all and a lot to spare.

But you've got to have style in whatever you do -- writing, music, painting, fashion, boxing, anything.

Time isn't the main thing. It's the only thing.

I don't wanna talk about Teo [Macero]. He's a helluva musician, a brilliant musician, but he's just not for me, that's all. I can elaborate on it, but I don't want to do that.

Do not fear mistakes, there are none.

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

Some of [drummers] drop time because they want to hear what you're doin'.

Space music'd be really something... but they don't have no gravity up there. You couldn't have no downbeat!

A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do.

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.

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.

Jimi Hendrix came from the blues, like me. We understood each other right away because of that. He was a great blues guitarist.

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.

I'm not messing around with nobody's woman. If I want a woman I go get her - you know what I mean?

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?

When you work with great musicians, they are always a part of you . . . their spirits are walking around in me, so they're still here and passing it on to others.

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.