Quotes from Wayne Shorter

Movies would be like a broad painted canvas... or a mystical process which cannot really be explained, like, 'What is electricity?' Along with the images that go on the screen, there's a corridor of dialogue that can happen through motion pictures, whether you're aware of it or not.

You're like the girl who left her shadow in the drawer, but when she went to get it, it wasn't there.

When we were kids, our parents would let us play outside all day, and there was a horse-drawn milk wagon that could become anything in my mind, like a spaceship or something.

When John Coltrane passed, we were in the church for the memorial. Albert Ayler came walking in playing, real out there. He was actually mourning through his horn. Mourning, but it was also like a call to wake up. Wake up!

I'm making strides to have dialogue with life. I'm walking down a garden path, something like that. And you're looking at the trees, and then you start to look at them through your inner eye.

If all you have is music, then you don't have music

Music is interior decoration.

Go out on the stage as a human being and do not be afraid to show struggle in your music. It's a struggle in life and then struggle and then victory.

I always think of music as interior decoration. So, if you have all kinds of music, you are fully decorated!

To hell with the rules. I'm going for the unknown.

Play and write music the way you want the world to be.

I'm learning more about life when I'm playing too, and writing music. I'm learning more about life, the connection.

The arts can open the door to the imagination, pushing the envelope of how peace can be created. It takes courage to take this kind of risk, and courage is what we all need to create a better world.

Your humanity is your instrument.

There are colors we can't see, but they're connected to the ones we can, There's a connection between everything.

To me, a song is not finished. To me, there's no such thing as a finished anything. All of Beethoven's nine symphonies, to me, are one. I think of it as having no beginning and no end.

It's up to the person who's being creative to find ways to emerge and shake up the world of wealth.

Jazz at Lincoln Center is something that is very necessary for the creative process. There's a couple of brothers running around New York, trying to buy up the cultural places, who shall remain nameless. Well, there's a lot of brothers - pick any two. Pin the tail on the... they want to buy up stuff and steer the country a certain way.

I'm the kind of person who jumps around when he talks because everything is connected.

I always say that music is a small drop in the ocean of life. I was told a long time ago that your horn, or whatever instrument you play, is a means to be in the world.

My perspective on life is now to try to play music that reflects that life and death are part of the same coin. And to know about life, we must really examine the function - like death. Life tells you a lot about what death is, not what people say it is.

It's making a statement about what life is, really. And I'm going to end the line with it.

To me, the definition of faith is to fear nothing.

There's a certain road in life most people walk on, because it's familiar, and they can jostle to get in front place. I prefer to take a different road that's less crowded, with many forks, where you get a wider view of life. I call it 'the road less travelled'. That's where I want to be.