Jimi Hendrix

All I play is truth and emotion.

I’m the one that has to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to.

Man, if you gotta ask you’ll never know.

I’m not playing for other musicians. We’re trying to reach the guy who works all day and wants to spend a buck at night. We’ll keep him happy.

It’s a matter of who would be right for each song. Mickey Hart for ‘All We Need is An Island’ – he’s the only guy I know who has Tahitian drums and every kind of drum on the planet.

To imitate someone is to insult them.

I say this because it’s a good message to give to young talents who feel as I used to. You hear musicians playing with great fluidity and complete conception early on, and you don’t have that ability. I didn’t. I had to know what I was doing. And ultimately it turned out that these people weren’t able to carry their thing very far. I found myself being more attracted to artists who have developed through the years and become better and deeper musicians.I believe in things that are developed through hard work.

You must own it to play it.

The true musician plays what he/she hears. That cannot be a mistake.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It’s our great contribution to the arts.

Play the music not the instrument.

You only go around once and this ain’t no rehearsal.

Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn’t have a choice.

I wrote “Pilot of My Destiny” because of my love of flying. The fact that my brother is a pilot inspired me to write it. I call him pilot. He calls me copilot.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t right.

If a literary man puts together two words about music, one of them will be wrong.