John Coltrane Music Quotations

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.

When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups.

You can play a shoestring if you're sincere.

My goal is to live the truly religious life and express it through my music. If you can live it, there's no problem about the music, because it's part of the whole thing.

This Half Note material really comes at a summit, ... It's the high point of a sound that the band had been cultivating, basically, since 1961. The music that was recorded there comes at the strongest point of that band, playing that sound. Right after that, they start changing and going other places.

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.

Sometimes I think I was making music through the wrong end of a magnifying glass.

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

Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music as if for the first time, as if I had never heard it before. Being so inescapably a part of it, I'll never know what the listener gets, what the listener feels, and that's too bad.

I'm into scales right now.

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

...That is one of the main causes of this arrogance: the idea of power. Then you lose your true power which is to be part of all, and the only way you can be part of all is to understand it. And when you don't understand, you have to go humbly to it. You don't go to school and say, 'I know what you're going to teach me'.

I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing . . . the emotional reaction is all that matters as long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.

Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician.

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

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

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

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

Invest yourself in everything you do. There's fun in being serious.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being...When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups...I want to speak to their souls.