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, to me, are one. I think of it as having no beginning and no end.

Jazz shouldn't have any mandates. Jazz is not supposed to be something that's required to sound like jazz. For me, the word 'jazz' means, 'I dare you.'

When they say 'jazz,' I'm thinking of a word called 'the creative process.' It intersects every vein and tributary, avenue, path, that everyone's living. It crosses through there, but it's been contained.

There's a steady forward march of a creative process that some of us stay with and don't give up - that should be an admirable thing - from Louis Armstrong to Charlie Parker to Miles to Ornette and some people who are not even known today - some kids coming up - people who are out to change the world.

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.

I think that music opens portals and doorways into unknown sectors that it takes courage to leap into. I always think that there's a potential that we all have, and we can emerge, rise up to this potential, when necessary. We have to be fearless, courageous, and draw upon wisdom that we think we don't have.

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.

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

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

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.

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

I would pass this music store on the way to school, and there was a clarinet in the window, a second-hand one. And I kept asking my parents to buy it, and eventually they did. I still have it now.

I'm trying to do music which inspires the desire to transcend politics, which has a limited and selfish and egoist and unknowledgable end about what anyone knows about existence.

Composing is improvisation slowed down.

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

You know the actor John Garfield? In one movie he walked up to this train station, the ticket booth, and the guy says, 'Yes, where are you going?' And he says, 'I want a ticket to nowhere.' I thought: that's it. The freedom to do that. I want a ticket to nowhere.

No one really knows how to deal with the unexpected. How do you rehearse the unknown?