97 Quotes by John Coltrane

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

I think I know what it is but don't ask me to play it

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

I want to be the force which is truly for good.

We should pray and seek for knowledge which would enable us to portray and project the things we love in music, in a way that might wholly or in some part, be appreciated as having been conceived and composed or performed and presented with dedication and in positive taste

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.

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.

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.

Change is inevitable in music - things change.