Sonny Rollins

One very important thing I learned from Monk was his complete dedication to music.

Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.

I’m now a legend, whether I want to be or not.

Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be Jazz.

What I can say is that for may years jazz musicians had to go to Europe, for instance, to be respected and to be sort of treated not in a discriminatory way. I don’t think there is anything controversial about me saying that. This is just a fact. …. Europeans really provided many venues over there and hailed the jazz artists, and a lot of musicians went over there and stayed over there for a long time. A lot of them moved over there, lived over there, and died over there.

No one is original. Everyone is derivative.

You’re just a little too hip for the room. It’s not good to be too hip because two hips make an ass.

When Bird came on the scene, it was shocking as in the Bible: everything was dark and then there was light.

Jazz has borrowed from other genres of music and also has lent itself to other genres of music.

Somebody asked me once, ‘Do you think that swing will ever come back?’ And I said, ‘Do you think the 1938 Form will ever come back?’

Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of subconsciousness—I wouldn’t know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.

Music’s a good thing, it calm the beast in the man.

Love songs last because they are about feelings that don’t change.

I find my inspiration in myself.

The reward for playing Jazz is playing Jazz.

Jazz singing is like pornography. You can’t say what it is, but you know it when you see it.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write to ultimately be at peace with himself.

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.

Jazz has an aesthetic intimacy, a romantic transference.

I think the most important thing about playing is to walk out with confidence, look the people right in the eye and say ‘Here I am,’ and go and do your thing. As soon as they know you’re confident, they’re confident. As long as you adjust to them you’re not in trouble. You should eyeball them, find out what they want, and give it to them. They didn’t pay to come out and look at the tapestries.

Inspiration comes from tunes you play, other musicians and your own imagination.