When I have them working together, it's like a beautiful kaleidoscope. Ornette Coleman More Quotes by Ornette Coleman More Quotes From Ornette Coleman 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. Ornette Coleman beginnershealthysound All the things that human beings suffer from are how their environment treats them, and how the elements of their planet affects their mind and body--like radiation, cancer, and all. Ornette Coleman cancersufferingmind Sound has no parents. Ornette Coleman parentsound Originally, I wanted to be a composer. I always tell people, 'I think of myself as a composer. Ornette Coleman composerpeoplethinking I mean, if you decided to go out today and get you an instrument and do whatever it is that you do, no one can tell you how you're going to do it but when you do it. Ornette Coleman instrumentstodaymean Only America makes you feel that everybody wants to be like you. That's what success is: Everybody wants to be like you. Ornette Coleman like-youwantamerica I'm having this conversation with you now. I'm talking, but I'm thinking, feeling, smelling, and moving. Yet I'm concentrating on what you're saying. So that means there's more things going on in the body than just the present thing that the person's got you doing. Ornette Coleman moving-onmeanthinking I had a really good time in New Orleans, although I had some very tragic times in Baton Rouge. Some guys beat me up and threw my horn away. 'Cause I had a beard, then, and long hair like the Beatles. Ornette Coleman new-orleanshairlong Musicians tell me, if what I'm doing is right, they should never have gone to school. Ornette Coleman musiciangoneschool It's just someone has labelled us as having a different label to do what you do. I find that labels are the worst thing in the world for artistic expression. Ornette Coleman labelsdifferentexpression To me, human existence exists on a multiple level, not just on a two-dimensional level, not just having to be identified with what you do and what you say. Ornette Coleman existencelevelstwo 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. Ornette Coleman musiciankindthinking After I left Texas and went to California, I had a hard time getting anyone to play anything that I was writing, so I had to end up playing them myself. And that's how I ended up just being a saxophone player. Ornette Coleman hard-timesplayerwriting 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. Ornette Coleman shoesshiningmother 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. Ornette Coleman business-relationshipcompanyrecords The human being receives the pleasure from music, not from the argument over what it is. Ornette Coleman argumentjazzmusic No one has to learn to spell to talk, right? You see a little kid holding a conversation with an adult. He probably doesn't know the words he's saying, but he knows where to fit them to make what he's thinking logical to what you're saying. Ornette Coleman adultskidsthinking 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. Ornette Coleman recordsmightthinking I remember once I read a book on mental illness and there was a nurse that had gotten sick. Do you know what she died from? From worrying about the mental patients not being able to get their food. She became a mental patient. Ornette Coleman nursingnursebook I decided, if I'm going to be poor and black and all, the least thing I'm going to do is to try and find out who I am. I created everything about me. Ornette Coleman musicwho-i-amdiscovery
