Herbie Hancock

Life is not about finding our limitations, it’s about finding our infinity.

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.

You can practice to learn technique, but I’m more interested in conceiving something in the moment.

I think I was supposed to play Jazz.

I’m always looking to create new avenues or new visions of music.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.

Jazz music has got to have that thing. You have to be born with it. You can’t even buy it. If you could buy it, they’d have it at the next Newport festival.

Even now, at 82 years old, if I don’t learn something every day, you know what I think? It’s a day lost. Now, I don’t practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I’m doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear.

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.

It’s about getting the sound to flow from your body and allowing that sound to get to the piano.

Jazz is a spectacularly accurate model of democracy and a look into our redemptive future possibilities.

You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!

My singing evolved with a feeling of intense relaxation, always using my diaphram and breathing specifically through my nose.

Living is easy with eyes closed.

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener.

I’m an interpreter of stories. When I perform it’s like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories.

If you take the time and your talent is real, it will last.

Talent is only the starting point.

We’re more popular than Jesus Christ now. I don’t know which will go first; rock and roll or Christianity.

All this is saying is, OK I see now, the ‘hood does not quite want Shirley Bassey yet, so let me still give them this. Crack Music was made after Diamonds. After black people were like, ‘I don’t know about this one.’ It was like me reaching too high for the cookie jar.