All a musician can do is to get closer to the sources of nature, and so feel that he is in communion with the natural laws.
JOHN COLTRANEStarting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
More John Coltrane Quotes
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Change is inevitable in music – things change.
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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.
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All of the technique doesn’t matter only if the feeling is right.
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I’ve always felt that even though a man was not a Christian, he still has to know the truth some way or another. Or if he was a Christian, he could know the truth. The truth itself doesn’t have any name on it to me. And each man has to find this for himself, I think.
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Don’t ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person.
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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.
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Invest yourself in everything you do. There’s fun in being serious.
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When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people.
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Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
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The main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe.
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You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.
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There is never any end, There are always new sounds to imagine; new feelings to get at. And always, there is the need to keep purifying these feelings and sounds so that we can really see what we’ve discovered in its pure state.
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Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist.
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I want to be a force for real good. In other words, I know there are bad forces. You know, I know that there are forces out here 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.
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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.
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My music is the spiritual expression of what I am: my faith, my knowledge, my being.
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One positive thought produces millions of positive vibrations.
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God breathes through us so completely, So gently we hardly feel it, yet it is our everything.
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Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.
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Starting in the middle of a musical sentence and moving in both directions at once.
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I think I know what it is but don’t ask me to play it.
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Damn the rules, it’s the feeling that counts.
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The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes.
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Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.
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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.
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I’d like to point out to people the divine in a musical language that transcends words. I want to speak to their souls.
JOHN COLTRANE