94 Quotes by Ornette Coleman

Only America makes you feel that everybody wants to be like you. That's what success is: Everybody wants to be like you.

After I found out that I was playing music and that I'd have to learn how to read and write music, I started doing that about two years later. Finally, I said, "Oh, that means what I really want to do is to be a composer." But when I was coming up in Texas, there was segregation. There was no schools to go to. I taught myself how to read and how to start writing.

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.

Jerry Garcia was one of the original American icons. He played naturally and beautifully.

Sound has no parents.

I wasn't so interested in being paid. I wanted to be heard. That's why I'm broke.

Musicians tell me, if what I'm doing is right, they should never have gone to school.

I'm interested in music, not in my image. If someone plays something fantastic, that I could never have thought of, it makes me happy to know it exists.

The idea is more important than the style you're playing in.