John Coltrane

“I believe that man is here to grow into the fullest, the best that he can be. At least this is what I want to do. As I am growing to become whatever I become, this will just come out on the horn. Whatever that's going to be, it will be. I am not so much interested in trying to say what it's going to be. I don't know. I just know that good can only bring good.”

“Any time you play your horn, it helps you. If you get down, you can help yourself even in a rock 'n' roll band.”

“I start from one point and go as far as possible. But, unfortunately, I never lose my way. I 'localize,' which is to say that I think always in a given space. I rarely think of the whole of a solo, and only very briefly. I always return to the small part of the solo that I was in the process of playing.”

“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.”

“Sometimes you have to take a thing when it comes and be glad. I first began to feel this way in '57, when I started to get myself together musically, although at the time I was working academically and technically.”

“In any situation that we find in our lives, when there is something that we feel should be better, we must exert effort to try and make it better. So it's the same socially, musically, politically in any department of our lives.”

“I believe that men are here to grow themselves into best good that they can be - at least, this is what I want to do.”

“I first met Miles Davis about 1947 and played a few jobs with him and Sonny Rollins at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. During this period, he was coming into his own, and I could see him extending the boundaries of jazz even further.”

“I find it's only when something is trying to come through I really practice. And then, I don't know how many hours. It's all day.”