Wayne Shorter

Your humanity is your instrument.

— Wayne Shorter

Dealing with the unknown, the unexpected, is a reflection for me musically of what's happening in the world, because people are learning…

— Wayne Shorter

A series of vibrations. What does it matter, the source of the catalyst?

— Wayne Shorter

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

— Wayne Shorter

Clouds float in the same pattern only once.

— Wayne Shorter

When we were kids, our parents would let us play outside all day, and there was a horse-drawn milk wagon that could…

— Wayne Shorter

I know Ornette was playing violin sometimes - that was his bridge into the classical world, to break up that whole pecking…

— Wayne Shorter

When they say 'jazz,' I'm thinking of a word called 'the creative process.' It intersects every vein and tributary, avenue, path, that…

— Wayne Shorter

I believe in everyone staying as they are, and when you meld together, you get something more accurate and democratic.

— Wayne Shorter

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

— Wayne Shorter

A lot of people don't know that Beethoven, when he wrote the Fifth Symphony, that second movement, he took eight years to…

— Wayne Shorter

To me, a song is not finished. To me, there's no such thing as a finished anything. All of Beethoven's nine symphonies,…

— Wayne Shorter

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

— Wayne Shorter

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

— Wayne Shorter

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

— Wayne Shorter

My perspective on life is now to try to play music that reflects that life and death are part of the same…

— Wayne Shorter

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…

— Wayne Shorter

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

— Wayne Shorter

In an inconspicuous way, Gretchen Parlato knows how to play the same instrument that Frank Sinatra played. There's no one out there…

— Wayne Shorter