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

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

- Ornette Coleman

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-…

- Ornette Coleman

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 sayin…

- Ornette Coleman

The idea is more important than the style you're playing in.

- Ornette Coleman

Sound has no parents.

- Ornette Coleman

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 yo…

- Ornette Coleman

We in the Western world suffer from too many categories and classes; we've forgotten that we all still have diapers on. We've separated music from li…

- Ornette Coleman

Whatever you do, it's over when you do it - but first you have to do it.

- Ornette Coleman