Creativity Quote by Herbie Mann

“Being stubborn has helped, being selfish is not a bad thing” reads like a musician giving you the unromantic survival tips nobody puts on a liner note. Herbie Mann isn’t glorifying bad behavior so much as naming the posture it can take to keep a career alive: the refusal to be steered, softened, or politely ignored.

Stubbornness here is discipline with teeth. In a music economy that routinely rewards predictability, sticking to your own taste can look like obstinacy to everyone else. Mann’s career arc makes that framing feel earned. He moved restlessly across jazz, Brazilian sounds, funk, and pop-crossover territory, often ahead of critical consensus and sometimes in defiance of it. “Helped” is the key word: stubbornness isn’t a moral virtue; it’s a practical tool for maintaining authorship when the market, the scene, and the gatekeepers all have opinions about what you should be.

The second clause is the provocation. “Selfish” lands harshly because we’re trained to romanticize artists as generous conduits, but Mann is talking about self-protection: guarding your time, your signature, your bandwidth. For working musicians, especially bandleaders, a certain selfishness is how you keep the project from dissolving into other people’s needs and compromises. The subtext is a quiet rebuttal to the expectation that artists should be grateful, agreeable, and endlessly collaborative.

It’s also a self-justification with edges. He’s asking permission for ambition, and admitting the costs. Not saintly, not apologetic: just honest about what it takes to keep playing your own song.