Quotes About Creativity

Making dances is an act of progress; it is an act of growth, an act of music, an act of teaching, an act of celebration, an act of joy.

When you play, never mind who listens to you.

My dad's Irish music was such a huge influence.

People sometimes forget that jazz was built not only in the minds of the great ones but on the backs of the ordinary ones — ordinary musicians.

Irving Berlin has no place in American music -- he is American music.

You can't steal a gift. Bird [Charlie Parker] gave the world his music, and if you can hear it you can have it.

Songwriting is different from music, although I don't deny now that it would be nice to have a little more background in music theory.

Man needs music, literature, and painting - all those oases of perfection that make up art - to compensate for the rudeness and materialism of life.

You cant make your music good. You cant try to be good. You can try to be present and you can try to remain open so what is going to speak to you can speak through you.

I think a life in music is a life beautifully spent, and this is what I have devoted my life to.

I'm dancing to the music of the madness inside me.

The imminent demise of the large record companies as gatekeepers of the world's popular music is a good thing, for the most part.

All art, literature, and music must be born in your heart's blood. Art is your heart's blood.

Imitate, assimilate, and innovate.

The blues appealed to me, but so did rock. The early rockabilly guitarists like Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore were just as important to me as the blues guitarists.

I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.

If all you have is music, then you don't have music

The most stupendous miracle in all music.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me.

For me, art, and especially music, exist to elevate us as far as possible above everyday existence.

I am an improviser, ... I improvise music. Whatever you want to call it all, it is all improvised music. I may capture it and go back and write it down for others, but it was originally improvised.

Music has the capacity to create a greater reality.

It will lead many musicians out of the cul-de-sac they currently face. And those that do not understand will be cursed to make disposable music on laptops forever.