Title Image - Quotes by Author Jimi HendrixPhoto Credit: WikiMedia Commons

Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Jimi Hendrix. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.

Wikipedia Summary for Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970) was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music".

Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army, but was discharged the following year. Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the chitlin' circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals became his manager. Within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience: "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", and "The Wind Cries Mary". He achieved fame in the US after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached number one in the US. The double LP was Hendrix's most commercially successful release and his first and only number one album. The world's highest-paid performer, he headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 before his accidental death in London from barbiturate-related asphyxia on September 18, 1970.

Hendrix was inspired by American rock and roll and electric blues. He favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in popularizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He was also one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of tone-altering effects units in mainstream rock, such as fuzz distortion, Octavia, wah-wah, and Uni-Vibe. He was the first musician to use stereophonic phasing effects in recordings. Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone commented: "Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before him had experimented with feedback and distortion, but Hendrix turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began."

Hendrix was the recipient of several music awards during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1967, readers of Melody Maker voted him the Pop Musician of the Year and in 1968, Billboard named him the Artist of the Year and Rolling Stone declared him the Performer of the Year. Disc and Music Echo honored him with the World Top Musician of 1969 and in 1970, Guitar Player named him the Rock Guitarist of the Year. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Rolling Stone ranked the band's three studio albums, Are You Experienced, Axis: Bold as Love, and Electric Ladyland, among the 100 greatest albums of all time, and they ranked Hendrix as the greatest guitarist and the sixth greatest artist of all time.

And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually.

--Jimi Hendrix

I don't give a damn what others say. It's okay to color outside of the lines.

--Jimi Hendrix

It's funny the way most people love the dead. Once you are dead, you are made for life.

--Jimi Hendrix

I try to use my music to move these people to act.

--Jimi Hendrix

I was trying to do too many things at the same time, which is my nature. But I was enjoying it, and I still do enjoy it.

--Jimi Hendrix

Lots of the things we do are dangerous, but life itself is dangerous; nothing is really worth bothering with that isn't full of danger.

--Jimi Hendrix

There was a period when I stopped talking so much, because I was just going through certain things. I just did the gigs and just stayed in, tried to stay away.

--Jimi Hendrix

Well I stand up next to a mountain, and I chop it down with the edge of my hand.

--Jimi Hendrix

I wouldn't say that I'm the greatest guitarist ever. I'd say probably that I'm the greatest guitarist sitting in this chair.

--Jimi Hendrix

Don't raise me up, I am but a messenger.

--Jimi Hendrix

If my baby don't love me no more, I know her sister will.

--Jimi Hendrix

I use to live in a room full of mirrors, all I could see was me.

--Jimi Hendrix

Manic depression is a frustratin' mess.

--Jimi Hendrix

My sons and their wives landed on Mars to start another race.

--Jimi Hendrix

I got a pet monkey called Charlie Chan.

--Jimi Hendrix

Promotion with my name only, that's all I have to do with it.

--Jimi Hendrix

Freaks, they are very prejudiced. You have to have your hair long and talk in a certain way in order to be with them. In order to be the other way you have to have your hair short and wear ties.

--Jimi Hendrix

I dig Strauss and Wagner, those cats are good.

--Jimi Hendrix

The way I write things, I just write them with a clash between reality and fantasy mostly. You have to use fantasy to show different sides of reality; it's how it can bend.

--Jimi Hendrix

You have to use fantasy to show different sides to reality. That's how it can bend.

--Jimi Hendrix

Room Full Of Mirrors, that's more of a mental disarrangement. This says something about broken glass used to be all in my brain.

--Jimi Hendrix

I get stoned, I can't get home, I'm calling long distance on a public saxophone. My head is achin', my back is breakin', feel I got run over by Captain Coconut and his dog named Rover.

--Jimi Hendrix

Don't waste your time thinkin' about bad things.

--Jimi Hendrix

We gotta stop smokin', stop, stop. I mean cigarette smoking.

--Jimi Hendrix

The smiling portrait of you is still hanging on my frowning wall.

--Jimi Hendrix

When I'm sad, she comes to me with a thousand smiles.

--Jimi Hendrix

Spiritually, it's always there. It gets better and better all the time. One of these days I'll just finally release all that out.

--Jimi Hendrix

You're not the only one accused of hit and run. Tire tracks all across my back, well I can see you've had your fun.

--Jimi Hendrix

Been riding broomsticks since she was fifteen.

--Jimi Hendrix

She's a devil in disguise, I can tell by looking in her eyes, little Miss Strange.

--Jimi Hendrix


There'll be no smoking in the gas chamber.

--Jimi Hendrix

I think it would count more, if we did less personal appearances.

--Jimi Hendrix

The dollar bill is God in the States. All those Pelican people just believe in money and nothing else.

--Jimi Hendrix

I'm a million miles away, and at the same time I'm right here in your picture frame.

--Jimi Hendrix

Drifting, On a sea of forgotten teardrops, On a lifeboat, Sailing for Your love.

--Jimi Hendrix

I didn't mean to take up all your sweet time... I'll give it right back to you, one of these days.

--Jimi Hendrix

One time I said: maybe I should burn a guitar tonight. You know smash a guitar or something like that. And they said: yeah, yeah! I said: you really think I should? They said: yeah, that'd be cool. I said: well, ok.

--Jimi Hendrix

Is this love, baby, or is this just confusion?

--Jimi Hendrix

Butterflies and zebras And moonbeams and fairy tales That's all she ever thinks about Riding with the wind.

--Jimi Hendrix

You know you are a sweet little heart breaker, foxy lady.

--Jimi Hendrix

the Grand Ole Opry used to come on, and I used to watch that. They used to have some pretty heavy cats, heavy guitar players.

--Jimi Hendrix

Click bang, what a hang, your daddy just shot poor me.

--Jimi Hendrix

Music is religion for me. There'll be music in the hereafter, too.

--Jimi Hendrix

Jesus shouldn't have died so early and then he could have got twice as much across. They killed him and then twisted so many of the best things he said. Human hands started messing it all up and now so much of religion is hogwash.

--Jimi Hendrix

The one that rambles for a million miles, yes, I walk down this road searching for your love.

--Jimi Hendrix

So you want to be married, oh baby, trying to put me on a chain, ain't that some shame? You must be losing your weak little mind.

--Jimi Hendrix

Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand? I'm going out to find my woman, caught her messing around with another man.

--Jimi Hendrix

Before you start pointing fingers, make sure your hands are clean.

--Jimi Hendrix

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

--Jimi Hendrix

White collar conservative flashin' down the street,
Pointing that plastic finger at me,
Hoping soon my kind will drop and die,
But I'm gonna wave my freak flag high.

--Jimi Hendrix

The sweet love between the moon and the deep blue sea.

--Jimi Hendrix

You don't have to be singing about love all the time in order to give love to the people. You don't have to keep flashing those words all the time.

--Jimi Hendrix

Purple Haze all in my brain, lately things don't seem the same. Actin' funny but I don't know why. 'Scuse me while I kiss the sky.

--Jimi Hendrix

Purple haze all in my eyes, don't know if it's day or night. You got me blowin', blowin' my mind. Is it tomorrow or just the end of time?

--Jimi Hendrix

I want to get up in the morning and just roll over in my bed into an indoor swimming pool. And then swim to the breakfast table.

--Jimi Hendrix

Please pass me the peace weed, and take some heed. Throw away all that mixed up speed.

--Jimi Hendrix

The world is nothing but a big gimmick.

--Jimi Hendrix

Music is the most important thing. I'm thinking of my future. There has to be something new, and I want to be part of it. I want to lead an orchestra with excellent musicians. I want to play music which draws pictures of the world and its space.

--Jimi Hendrix

Have you ever been experienced? Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful.

--Jimi Hendrix

Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past? And with its crutch, its old age, and its wisdom, it whispers no this will be the last.

--Jimi Hendrix

Good and evil lay side by side.

--Jimi Hendrix

Music is going to break the way because music is in a spiritual thing of its own. It's like the waves of the ocean. You can't just cut out the perfect wave and take it home with you.

--Jimi Hendrix

With the power of soul, anything is possible.

--Jimi Hendrix

Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction.

--Jimi Hendrix

Longer Version:

Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction...All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland...I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around...Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.


Are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced?

--Jimi Hendrix

Say hello to my mother and father...the Earth and Space.

--Jimi Hendrix

Let me live my life the way I want to.

--Jimi Hendrix

The time I burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things you love. I love my guitar.

--Jimi Hendrix

Technically, I'm not a guitar player, all I play is truth and emotion.

--Jimi Hendrix

Who are you to judge the life i live
i know i'm not perfect and i don't live to be.
but before you start pointing fingers
make sure your hands are clean.

--Jimi Hendrix

My goal is to be one with the music. I just dedicate my whole life to this art.

--Jimi Hendrix

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.

--Jimi Hendrix

Music is my religion.

--Jimi Hendrix

It all has to come from inside, though, I guess.

--Jimi Hendrix

See, that's nothing but blues, that's all I'm singing about. It's today's blues.

--Jimi Hendrix

When I die, just keep playing the records.

--Jimi Hendrix

Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you'll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you're gonna be rewarded.

--Jimi Hendrix

I don't have nothing to regret at all in the past, except that I might've unintentionally hurt somebody else or something.

--Jimi Hendrix

In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first.

--Jimi Hendrix

When I played God Bless The Queen, I was wondering if they was gonna dig us, then quite naturally I'd go on and try to get it together.

--Jimi Hendrix

To be with the others, you have to have your hair short and wear ties. So we're trying to make a third world happen, you know what I mean?

--Jimi Hendrix

I wish they'd had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would've been straightened out.

--Jimi Hendrix

If I'm free, it's because I'm always running.

--Jimi Hendrix

When things get too heavy, just call me helium, the lightest known gas to man.

--Jimi Hendrix

When I die, I want people to play my music, go wild and freak out and do anything they want to do.

--Jimi Hendrix

Music is a safe kind of high.

--Jimi Hendrix

Longer Version:

Music is a safe type of high. It's more the way it was supposed to be. That's where highness came, I guess, from anyway. It's nothing but rhythm and motion.


You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.

--Jimi Hendrix

I used to live in a room full of mirrors; all I could see was me. I take my spirit and I crash my mirrors, now the whole world is here for me to see.

--Jimi Hendrix

You have to give people something to dream on.

--Jimi Hendrix

If it was up to me, there wouldn't be no such thing as the establishment.

--Jimi Hendrix

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

--Jimi Hendrix

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.

--Jimi Hendrix

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