John Coltrane

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.

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

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

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

You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.

I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is ’cause I’m changing all the time.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.

Jazz goes into my coffee in the morning, in my wine at night.

One of the great moments of my life was when I could write musician on my passport.

The way a band works is a metaphor for all sorts of collaborative and larger enterprises that people do.

I’ll always remember when I first heard Lester [Young]. I’d never heard anyone like him before. He was a stylist with a different sound. A sound I’d never heard before or since. To be honest with you, I didn’t much like it at first.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about, but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.

For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn’t live with it–even of my own music–with the same nuances forever.

Despite the fact I’m a professional performer, it’s true that I have always preferred playing without an audience.

I can count on one hand the number of instrumental hits there have been over the last 10 years.

I know what I’ve done for music, but don’t call me a legend. Just call me Miles Davis.

Master your instrument, master the music and then forget all that and just play.

People like the idea of the trio and so I did mostly trio.

Give it a good go, try to have fun at it, try to pass on some good notes and some good sounds to your fans, and I don’t think you will have wasted your time.

The guitar and the dog, in order not to be separated from man, have submitted themselves with resignation to the worst alterations of size and appearance.