A biography for Herbie Hancockhasn’t been written yet.
“I try to practice with my life.”
“We are eternally linked not just to each other but our environment.”
“Sometimes you have to create a vision, a path for a vision. It may not be apparent, and you may have to forge it yourself. And that will be the way to move your life forward.”
“World peace is no longer some pie-in-the-sky thing, because no single person or country is going to solve it on their own.”
“I've never really been interested in doing a solo piano tour.”
“Jazz is about being in the moment.”
“One thing I like about jazz is that it emphasized doing things differently from what other people were doing.”
“It's easy to get sidetracked with technology, and that is the danger, but ultimately you have to see what works with the music and what doesn't. In a lot of cases, less is more. In most cases, less is more.”
“Music truly is the universal language.”
“I hope to use dialogue and culture as a means of bringing people of various cultures together, and using that as a way to resolve conflict.”
“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.”
“I got a chance to work with Miles Davis, and that changed everything for me, 'cause Miles really encouraged all his musicians to reach beyond what they know, go into unknown territory and explore. It's made a difference to me and the decisions that I've made over the years about how to approach a project in this music.”
“As a human being, I'm concerned about the world that I live in. So, I'm concerned about peace. I'm concerned about - about man's inhumanity to man. I'm concerned about the environment.”
“It's not the style that motivates me, as much as an attitude of openness that I have when I go into a project.”
“Nobody told me I was a child prodigy.”
“You make different colors by combining those colors that already exist.”
“I've always been interested in science. I used to take watches apart and clocks apart, and there's little screws, and a little this and that, and I found out if I dropped one of them, that thing ain't gonna work.”
“All you have to do is play one note. But it needs to be the right note.”
“The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom.”
“It's part of life to have obstacles. It's about overcoming obstacles; that's the key to happiness.”