Quotes By Herbie Hancock

While knowledge may provide useful point of reference, it cannot become a force to guide the future.

Nobody told me I was a child prodigy.

See, there were certain rules I'd always used, and people like Trane, they would break those rules.

I've been a religious, spiritual person for a long time.

Getting the Oscar had the biggest impression on me.

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

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

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

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

I feel a lot more secure about the directions I take, than I might have, had I not practiced Buddhism.

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

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

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

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.

In the past, there's always been one leader that has led the pack to development of the music.

The music becomes something that is its own entity.

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.

I'm always interested in looking forward toward the future. Carving out new ways of looking at things.

When I was in my early teens, I remember coming to the conclusion that your life never ends.

But, the truth is that everyone is somebody already.

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

Jazz is about being in the moment.

Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.

The value of music is not dazzling yourself and others with technique.

I try stuff. I synthesize what's of value with some of the other things I have at my disposal.

I think I was supposed to play jazz.

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

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

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