218 Quotes by Miles Davis

That's the way you judge a car, man, [good or bad], when you start it up. It's just the same thing. I mean, I drive a Ferrari - not to be cute, but because I dig it. I'd rather drive a ten-year-old Ferrari than one of them new things-they don't go.

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.

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

Jazz is an Uncle Tom word. They should stop using that word for selling. I told George Wein the other day that he should stop using it.

As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.

That was my gift . . . having the ability to put certain guys together that would create a chemistry and then letting them go; letting them play what they knew, and above it.

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

Monk taught me more about music composition than anyone else on 52nd Street.

I'm out there doing the best that I can, My lip is cut and I'm still playing.