John Coltrane

I’ve found you’ve got to look back at the old things and see them in a new light.

All of the technique doesn’t matter… only if the feeling is right.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.

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

The emotional reaction is all that matters.

All a musician can do is to get closer to the source.

Jazz has evolved with an inner necessity characteristic of any true art form.

If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.

It’s spontaneity that has always characterized Jazz music’s finest improvisers.

When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!

When I write songs that touch on social relevance, all you have to do is pick up a newspaper.

Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms of his mistress, a bartender, his wife, a good psychiatrist – whatever.

If a player is pushing their ability, a certain amount of failure is inevitable. Maybe even desirable.

Well, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!

The fact that an artist is experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in it together.

Musicians need enough experience to develop a vocabulary.

What a fool I am to think my breaking heart could kid the moon.

Love is sweeping the country.

I never set out to find a style of my own, it just happened.