John Coltrane Quotes

I believe that men are here to grow themselves into best good that they can be - at least, this is what I want to do.

Favorite Things' is my favorite piece of all those I have recorded.

I think I was first awakened to musical exploration by Dizzy Gillespie and Bird. It was through their work that I began to learn about musical structures and the more theoretical aspects of music.

The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.

I'm into scales right now.

Change is inevitable in music - things change.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being ... When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups ... I want to speak to their souls.

I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.

The reason I play so many sounds, maybe it sounds angry, is because I'm trying so many things at one time, you see? I haven't sorted them out. I have a whole bag of things that I'm trying to work through and get the one essential.

There are so many things to be considered in making music. The whole question of life itself ... I know that I want to produce beautiful music, music that does things to people that they need.

Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock 'n' roll band.

Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.

I think the majority of musicians are interested in truth.

The real risk is not
changing. I have to feel that I'm after something. If I make money, fine. But
I'd rather be striving. It's the striving, man, it's that I want.

If you're bourgeois, money is it. It's all the questions and all the answers. Ain't no E-flat or color blue, only $12.98 or $1,000. If it isn't money, it isn't nothing.

I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing ... the emotional reaction is all that matters as long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.

I believe that man is here to grow into the fullest, the best that he can be. At least this is what I want to do. As I am growing to become whatever I become, this will just come out on the horn. Whatever that's going to be, it will be. I am not so much interested in trying to say what it's going to be. I don't know. I just know that good can only bring good.

Invest yourself in everything you do. There's fun in being serious.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.

My goal is to live the truly religious life, and express it in my music. If you live it, when you play there's no problem because the music is part of the whole thing. To be a musician is really something. It goes very, very deep. My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.

Working with Monk brought me close to a musical architect of the highest order. I felt I learned from him in every way
through the senses, theoretically, technically. I would talk to Monk about musical problems, and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them. I could watch him play and find out the things I wanted to know. Also, I could see a lot of things that I didn't know about at all.

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups.

I would like to bring to people something like happiness. I would like to discover a method so that if I want it to rain, it will start right away to rain. If one of my friends is ill, I'd like to play a certain song and he will be cured; when he'd be broke, I'd bring out a different song and immediately he'd receive all the money he needed.

Working with Monk is like falling down a dark elevator shaft

We should pray and seek for knowledge which would enable us to portray and project the things we love in music, in a way that might wholly or in some part, be appreciated as having been conceived and composed or performed and presented with dedication and in positive taste

Lots of people imagine wrongly that 'My Favorite Things' is one of my compositions; I would have loved to have written it, but it's by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Over all, I think the main thing a musician would like to do is give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things that he knows of and senses in the universe ... Thats what I would like to do. I think thats one of the greatest things you can do in life and we all try to do it in some way. The musicians is through his music.

Considering the great heritage in music that we have - the work of the giants of the past, the present, and the promise of those who are to come - I feel that we have every reason to face the future optimistically.

I want to be a force for real good. In other words. I know that there are bad forces, forces that bring suffering to others and misery to the world, but I want to be the opposite force. I want to be the force which is truly for good.