“[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.”

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

I’ll play it first and figure out what it’s called later.

You can dominate a game if you dominate on the line… We’re just going to have to go out there and work hard and blow people off the ball, and let our runners do what they do best.

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

In other words, an instrument should be an extension of you; it’s supposed to sound like you – the way you walk, the way you dress, you know.

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

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

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.

You should never be comfortable, man. Being comfortable fouled up a lot of musicians.

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

I ain’t no entertainer, and ain’t trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician.

All my inspiration comes from Ahmad Jamal.

Always look ahead, but never look back.

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.

You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.

The way you change and help music is by tryin’ to invent new ways to play.

There are days when the melancholy settles on you like a sudden change in weather. The kind of sadness that is intangible. Like the presence of an ache where you can’t pinpoint exactly where it hurts, you just know it does.

I know you are scared. Who could blame you? Love is a hurricane wrapped inside a chrysalis. And you are a girl walking into the storm.

You know, I hear all these things about women’s rights.

The visible and near-ultraviolet emission spectrum of the CH radical has been known ever since spectra of an ordinary Bunsen burner have been taken.

And to the extent that we do not violate any known laws of the universe, we can probably make it work the way that we want to.

There isn’t an injury known to man that Bryan Robson hasn’t had.

I know there is a terrible distance between us. But our bodies are made of stardust, and we are hurtling through space and time, toward the most beautiful collision.

Knowing sleep will set it right – if you were not to wake.