Top 100 Miles Davis Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that you play that determines if it’s good or bad.”

— Miles Davis

Featured in: Music Quotes, Performance Quotes

2. “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”

— Miles Davis

Featured in: Music Quotes, Failure Quotes, Short Quotes, Beautiful Quotes, Creative Quotes

3. “Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery.”

— Miles Davis

4. “Time isn’t the main thing. It’s the only thing.”

— Miles Davis

5. “Music is an addiction.”

— Miles Davis

Featured in: Music Quotes

6. “In music, silence is more important than sound.”

— Miles Davis

Featured in: Music Quotes, Silence Quotes

7. “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.”

— Miles Davis

8. “First you imitate, then you innovate.”

— Miles Davis

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

— Miles Davis

10. “A painting is music you can see and music is a painting you can hear.”

— Miles Davis

11. “Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!”

— Miles Davis

12. “Always look ahead, but never look back.”

— Miles Davis

13. “Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is.”

— Miles Davis

14. “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.”

— Miles Davis

15. “It’s not the notes you play, it’s the notes you don’t play.”

— Miles Davis

16. “It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.”

— Miles Davis

17. “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.”

— Miles Davis

18. “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.”

— Miles Davis

19. “There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places.”

— Miles Davis

20. “My future starts when I wake up every morning.”

— Miles Davis

21. “Don’t worry about playing a lot of notes. Just find one pretty one.”

— Miles Davis

22. “In improvisation, there are no mistakes.”

— Miles Davis

23. “There are no wrong notes.”

— Miles Davis

24. “If you understood everything I said, you’d be me.”

— Miles Davis

25. “Music is the framework around the silence.”

— Miles Davis

26. “We don’t play to be seen. I’m addicted to music, not audiences.”

— Miles Davis

27. “If you’re not nervous then you’re not paying attention.”

— Miles Davis

28. “I don’t like to hear someone put down dixieland. Those people who say there’s no music but bop are just stupid; it shows how much they don’t know.”

— Miles Davis

29. “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?”

— Miles Davis

30. “To keep creating you have to be about change.”

— Miles Davis

31. “Play what you know and then play above that.”

— Miles Davis

32. “I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.”

— Miles Davis

33. “John Lee Hooker is the funkiest man alive.”

— Miles Davis

34. “If you don’t know what to play, play nothing.”

— Miles Davis

35. “Some day I’m gonna call me up on the phone, so when I answer, I can tell myself to shut up.”

— Miles Davis

36. “For me, music and life are all about style.”

— Miles Davis

37. “You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.”

— Miles Davis

38. “Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.”

— Miles Davis

39. “When the band plays fast, you play slow; when the band plays slow, you play fast.”

— Miles Davis

40. “I always listen to what I can leave out.”

— Miles Davis

41. “My ego only needs a good rhythm section.”

— Miles Davis

42. “Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.”

— Miles Davis

43. “You can tell whether a person plays well or not by the way he carries the instrument, whether it means something to him or not.”

— Miles Davis

44. “The only reason to write a new song is because you’re tired of the old ones.”

— Miles Davis

45. “So What or Kind of Blue were done in that era, the right hour, the right day. It’s over; it’s on the record.”

— Miles Davis

46. “People will go for anything they don’t understand if it’s got enough hype...”

— Miles Davis

47. “If you’re trying to be hip, be hip.”

— Miles Davis

48. “Food makes my mind sluggish.”

— Miles Davis

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

— Miles Davis

50. “You have to know 400 notes that you can play, then pick the right four.”

— Miles Davis