Herbie Hancock famous quotes

I've been curious ever since I was a little kid.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Kids #Littles #Curious

The cool thing is that jazz is really a wonderful example of the great characteristics of Buddhism and great characteristics of the human spirit. Because in jazz we share, we listen to each other, we respect each other, we are creating in the moment. At our best, we're non-judgmental.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Inspirational #Buddhism #Creating

I like to be on the edge, on the cutting edge, or be into the unknown, into the territory where I have to depend on being in the moment and depending on my instincts.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Cutting #Territory #Moments

The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Spirit #Jazz

I don't go around, the way many musicians do, with earbuds in my ear listening to my iPod all day and just sticking my head in the music all the time.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Ipods #Listening #Musician

Music is the tool to express life - and all that makes a difference.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Differences #Making A Difference #Tools

Jazz is really about the human experience. It’s about the ability of human beings to take the worst of circumstances and struggles and turn it into something creative and constructive. That’s something that’s built into the fiber of every human being. And I think that’s why people can respond to it. They feel the freedom in it. And the attributes of jazz are also admirable. It’s about dialogue. It’s about sharing. And teamwork. It’s in the moment, and it's nonjudgmental.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Teamwork #Struggle #Thinking

You would not exist if you did not have something to bring to the table of life.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Self Esteem #Tables #Esteem

Forget about trying to compete with someone else. Create your own pathway. Create your own new vision,
-- Herbie Hancock

#Vision #Trying #Pathways

Don't be afraid to expand yourself, to step out of your comfort zone. That's where the joy and the adventure lie.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Fear #Lying #Adventure

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Art #Language

Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept. He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it really came from. Almost all of the harmony that I play can be traced to one of those four people and whoever their influences were.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Play #People #Bills

It pulled me like a magnet, jazz did, because it was a way that I could express myself.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Way #Jazz #Magnet

The most valuable things in life are priceless. They are courage, compassion, wisdom, respect for ourselves and others, and a host of characteristics that we call the beauty of the human spirit.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Compassion #Carpe Diem #Spirit

We are eternally linked not just to each other but our environment.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Diversity #Environment #Our Environment

You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Knowledge #Practice

Jazz is about being in the moment.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Jazz #Moments

Life is not about finding our limitations, it's about finding our infinity.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Infinity #Life Is

You don't need the fame to be vital.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Meaning Of Life #Needs #Fame

It's not exclusive, but inclusive, which is the whole spirit of jazz.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Spirit #Jazz

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Jazz #Genres Of Music

I hope that I can make good music out of whatever genre I go into. Just to prove to myself that I can.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Genre #Prove

Buddhism has turned me on to my humanness, and is challenging my humanness so that I can become more human.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Buddhism #Challenges #Humans

But I have to be careful not to let the world dazzle me so much that I forget that I'm a husband and a father.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Husband #Father #Dazzle

The music becomes something that is its own entity.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Jazz #Entity

I think there's a great beauty to having problems. That's one of the ways we learn.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Thinking #Way #Problem

We can all be ourselves, be true to ourselves, and all be together.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Together #Being True #Interconnection

One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #People #Jazz

A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students' creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Teacher #Creativity #Goal

The arts have always served relationships between people of different cultures so well. In a way, the arts function as a very serious kind of ambassador.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Art #Creativity #People

Creativity and artistic endeavors have a mission that goes far beyond just making music for the sake of music.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Inspirational #Music #Creativity

One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Mean #People #African American

Since time is a continuum, the moment is always different, so the music is always different.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Different #Moments #Music Is

I try to practice with my life.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Practice #Trying

Nobody told me I was a child prodigy.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Children #Prodigies

In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Art #Choices

It is people's hearts that move the age.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Moving #Heart

The true artform is being a human being.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Humans

I don't mind being classified as a jazz artist, but I do mind being restricted to being a jazz artist. My foundation has been in jazz, though I didn't really start out that way. I started in classical music, but my formative years were in jazz, and it makes a great foundation.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Artist #Years #Mind

We need to put into practice the idea of embracing other cultures. We need to be shaping the kind of world we want to live in instead of waiting for someone else or some other entities to do it for us.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Ideas #Other Cultures #Practice

I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African part of our history was pretty much taken away from us during slavery, so the 60s gave us a chance, because of the civil rights movement, to kind of re-examine and make some sort of formal connection to our African-ness.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Taken #Thinking #Rights

So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Legacy #Influence #Miles

One thing that attracted me to Buddhism was the support for this larger vision of values.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Buddhism #Support #Vision

One of the greatest experiences I ever had was listening to a conversation with Joni Mitchell and Wayne Shorter. Just to hear them talking, my mouth was open. They understand each other perfectly, and they make these leaps and jumps because they don't have to explain anything.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Talking #Listening #Mouths

My first Grammy wasn't even in a jazz category, but of course I was really excited. 'Rockit' was the beginning of kind of a new era for the whole hip-hop movement.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Hip Hop #Eras #Firsts

Jazz translates the moment into a sense of inspiration for not only the musicians but for the listeners.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Inspiration #Jazz

You can expand, repeat, even change keys and do other things electronically to give certain elements and phrases more cohesiveness.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Change #Keys #Giving

So I didn't actually change my name the way some people did.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Change #Names #People

It might be something as simple as saying the right word to the right person at the right time-and that could change the course of history. You never really know. But the whole thing is to work at the process of being in sync with the universe, so that everything will align at the proper time so that you can deliver that which is your life mission. And that's why we're here as individuals. And then there's our contribution to the collective. It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
-- Herbie Hancock

#Simple #Musician #Might

Inspiration is constantly in the air. It's up to us to develop the sensitivity to pick up on it.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Inspiration #Air #Mathematical

I never dreamed I would be a Goodwill Ambassador, and for UNESCO. Perfect organization. It is apolitical and it's about education, science and culture. I mean that is what I live. That is what UNESCO is really about; it's all about bringing human beings together with one common goal, which is to move human kind forward.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Moving #Mean #Organization

I look for what's of value and extract that. I don't look to criticize.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Criticism #Looks #Criticize

Wisdom is the key to understanding the age, creating the time.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Wisdom #Keys #Creating

Music isn't about music, it's about life.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music Is

Jazz to me is the spirit of freedom. I mean real freedom. Freedom to explore. Freedom to express. Freedom to pour out your guts.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Real #Mean

There's so much spontaneity involved, what do you practice? How do you practice teamwork? How do you practice sharing? How do you practice daring? How do you practice being nonjudgmental?
-- Herbie Hancock

#Music #Teamwork #Practice

A jazz musician is not a jazz musician when he or she is eating dinner or when he or she is with his parents or spouse or neighbors. He's above all a human being . . . the true artform is being a human being.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Parent #Musician #Dinner

Jazz has been the voice of freedom for so many countries over the past half century,
-- Herbie Hancock

#Country #Past #Voice

When a human being is oppressed, the natural tendency is to feel anger. Jazz is a response to oppression that is not bullets and blood. Jazz is the expression of harmony ... and at the same time of hope and freedom.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Expression #Blood #Bullets

Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Future #Purpose #Valuable

I'm aware that a lot of what is happening in jazz has not had a very dynamic change in a long time.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Change #Long #Jazz

My father was really good with math. It's a funny thing, I don't remember my father or my mother being so mechanical-minded. My father always wanted to be a doctor, but he came from a really poor family in Georgia, and there was no way he was going to be a doctor.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Mother #Father #Math