Miles Davis Quotes

My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

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.

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

If you understood everything I said, you’d be me

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

Do not fear mistakes, there are none.

It’s like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of shit is that, but white people’s shit?

I always listen to what I can leave out.

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.

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

The very first thing I remember in my early childhood is a flame, a blue flame jumping off a gas stove somebody lit... I remember being shocked by the whoosh of the blue flame jumping off the burner, the suddenness of it... I saw that flame and felt that hotness of it close to my face. I felt fear, real fear, for the first time in my life. But I remember it also like some kind of adventure, some kind of weird joy, too. I guess that experience took me someplace in my head I hadn't been before... The fear I had was almost like an invitation, a challenge to go forward into something I knew nothing about. That's where I think my personal philosophy of life and my commitment to everything I believe in started... In my mind I have always believed and thought since then that my motion had to be forward, away from the heat of that flame.