94 Quotes by Ornette Coleman

I have often read critical pieces where the critic said that what the composer was trying to do didn’t come off. I have wondered what the critic meant if he didn’t know what the composer was trying to do.

I don’t know what they’re thinking about. Just because someone says, ‘I like what you do’ or something: They might like it today and tomorrow they might not. I’ve had that experience with record companies.

Most of my relationships have been like that – with record companies. I’ve never had a legitimate business relationship with a company. I’ve always had a personal relationship with someone in the company.

It seems the activity of expressing sound to do with music has just started blooming – and because of that, the beginners feel like they’re professionals, and the professionals feel like they are beginners, which is very healthy.

I’ve never had a relationship with a record executive. I always went to the record company by someone that liked my playing. Then they would get fired, and I’d be left with the record company. And then – because they got fired – the record company wouldn’t do anything for me.

Even when you write it, someone’s got to play it. So if you can play it and bypass all the rest of the things, you’re still doing as great as someone that has spent forty years trying to find out how to do that. I’m really pro-human beings, pro-expression of everything.

Whatever you do, it’s over when you do it – but first you have to do it.

I asked my mother could I have an instrument. She said, ‘Well if you go out and save your money.’ So I went and got – I made me a shine box. I went out and started shining shoes, and I’d bring whatever I made.

I don’t really live like a musician myself. I think music is just something that I do, but I’d like to be doing lots of other things. I like to cure all kinds of illness.