Ornette Coleman

The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is.

Talk of God is most often in church. Is there a God outside of church? I hope so. But how should I know? How does anybody know?

Difference between sex and love? Well, you’re not always sure you’re in love. But when you’re having sex, there’s really no mistaking it.

Music is a verb.

Musicians tell me, if what I’m doing is right, they should never have gone to school.

The idea is more important than the style you’re playing in.

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini.

If you don’t know what it is, don’t mess with it.

Jazz is America’s classical music.

Life is too full of distractions nowadays. When I was a kid we had a little Emerson radio and that was it. We were more dedicated. We didn’t have a choice.

Music was our wife, and we loved her. And we stayed with her, and we clothed her, and we put diamond rings on her hands.

If you’re gonna sing meaningful songs, you have to be committed to living a life that backs that up.

My Strat is another arm, it’s part of me. It doesn’t feel like a guitar at all. It’s an implement which is my voice.

I sing like I feel.

As a little kid, blues meant hope, excitement, pure emotion. Blues were about feelings. They seem to bring out the feelings of the artist and they brought out my feelings as a kid. They made me wanna move, or sing, or pick up Reverend’s guitar and figure out how to make those wonderful sounds.

Jazzmen are our surrogates for the unpredictable, our paladins of constant change.

The guitar is just a wonderful instrument. It’s everything: a bartender, a psychiatrist, a housewife. It’s everything, but it’s elusive.

I had a really good time in New Orleans, although I had some very tragic times in Baton Rouge. Some guys beat me up and threw my horn away. ‘Cause I had a beard, then, and long hair like the Beatles.

How do I know why Miles walks off the stage? Why don’t you ask him? And besides, maybe we’d all like to be like Miles, and just haven’t got the guts.

When you hear my lyrics, you hear the shots that I throw at people. I throw shots because I always been the underdog. I got rejected so many times, and I say it in my lyrics constantly.

I’m using the insides of sounds to move around in a very subtle way which, I think, ends up being inevitable.