Miles Davis White Quotations

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.

I don't hold it against Dizzy [Gillespie], you know, but if a guy wants to play a certain way, you work towards that. If he stops - he's full of crap, you know. I mean, I wouldn't do it, for no money, or for no place in the white man's world. Not just to make money, because then you don't have anything. You don't have as much money as whoever you're trying to ape; that's making money by being commercial. Then you don't have anything to give the world; so you're not important. You might as well be dead.

...people will go for anything they don't understand if it's got enough hype. They want to be hip, want always to be in on the new thing so they don't look unhip. White people are especially like that, particularly when a black person is doing something they don't understand...That's what I thought was happening when Ornette hit town.

White folks always think that you have to have a label on everything - you know what I mean?

I mean, it makes me sick when I see a white man sitting there smiling at me being entertaining, man. When I know what he's gonna do after he gets through. You know, when you see that thing on their face - like: "Entertain me." You know what I mean? Even the black guy that's trying to be white - even he can have that crap on his face.

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

We're not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got 'em, so they can keep 'em.

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