Man, that cat [Ornette Coleman] is nuts.

Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself.

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy

The loudest noise in the world is silence.

There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others.

Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture.

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

Don't play everything (or every time); let some things go by... What you don't play can be more important than what you do.

Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently.

The only cats worth anything are the cats that take chances.

Dreams are born from the Rubbles of Pain.

in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems

God is a sort of burglar. As a young man you knock him down; as an old man you try to conciliate him, because he may knock you down.

What can I tell you I continue to be creative, but have only been commercially successful outside of the U.S.

I don't know who you're referring to exactly who said, 'What has Iraq done to us?'

Never by reflection, but only by doing is self- knowledge possible to one.

People are much more willing nowadays to believe that pictures lie than [that] they can express any kind of truth.

There's such an advantage to being involved in the day-to-day details of each other's lives. It's a marvelous fabric to exist in.

I find that after a screening, people really want to come and tell you what they feel.

I think the first prerequisite to civilization is an ability to make polite conversation.