Just a collection of my favorite quotations. Mostly about music and musicians. 

 "Schlepping all of the equipment is the part I hate more than anything." John Abercrombie 

 "Hipness is not a state of mind, It's a fact of life!" Cannonball Adderley

 "Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below." Joseph Addison

 "The music is between your ears." Jamey Aebersold

 "Eighty percent of success is showing up." Woody Allen

 "There's a lot of different forms of communication, but music is absolutely the purest one." Duane Allman

 "When words fail, music speaks." Hans Christian Anderson

 "I often discover that what sounds great at home sounds hideous in public." Tuck Andress

 "If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough." Mario Andretti

 "Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness." Maya Angelou

 "There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face." Anonymous

 "If they act too hip, you know they can't play sh*t!" Louis Armstrong

 "Each man has his own music bubbling up inside him." Louis Armstrong

 "Man, all music is folk music. You ain't never heard no horse sing a song, have you?" Louis Armstrong

 "Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." Berthold Auerbach

 "Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway." Emory Austin

 "I play the notes as they are written, but it is God who makes the music." J.S. Bach

 "The aim and final reason of all music is none else but the glory of God." J.S. Bach

 "Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life." Ludwig van Beethoven

 "One of the things I like about jazz, kid, is I don't know what's going to happen next." Bix Beiderbecke

 "Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable." Leonard Bernstein

 "I serve society by rocking!" Jack Black

 "Stay cool, look professional, and pretend this is very, very easy." Dusan Bogdanovic

 "I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions." Augusten Burroughs

 "Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." Albert Camus

 "The only good thing to come out of religion is music." George Carlin

 "Music is well said to be the speech of angels." Thomas Carlyle

 "I never wanted to be famous, I only wanted to be great." Ray Charles

 "Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself." Chinese Proverb

 "Nothing is more beautiful than a guitar, save perhaps two." Fredric Chopin

 "These days, there is more rhythm in our lives than harmony." Jeff Clayton

 "Art is science made clear." Jean Cocteau

 "Musicians tell me, if what I'm doing is right, they should never have gone to school." Ornette Coleman

 "Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time." Ornette Coleman

 "Owning a handgun doesn't make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician." Jeff Cooper

 "He who dares to teach must never cease to learn." Richard Henry Dann

 "Don't play what's there, play what's not there." Miles Davis

 "Do not fear mistakes, there are none." Miles Davis

 "I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am one thing, a musician." Miles Davis

 "Art is not what you see, but what you make others see." Edgar Degas

 "Puberty was very vague. I literally locked myself in a room and played guitar." Johnny Depp

 "I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to sound like a dry martini." Paul Desmond

 "We're working as if it were going out of style, which of course it is." Paul Desmond

 "Composers shouldn't think too much, it interferes with their plagiarism." Howard Dietz

 "When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone, in the air, you can never capture it again." Eric Dolphy

 "The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for." Maureen Dowd

 "Music is only love looking for words." Lawrence Durrell

 "It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge." Albert Einstein

 "You are the music while the music lasts." T.S. Eliot

 "A goal is a dream with a finish line." Duke Ellington

 "If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!" Duke Ellington

 "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing." Duke Ellington

 "Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing." John Erskine

 "You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." Henry Ford

 "Somebody's got to make some music around here." Robben Ford

 "Boxing is like jazz, the better it is, the less people appreciate it."George Foreman

 "Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence." Robert Fripp

 "To me, jazz is a place where anything is possible." Bill Frisell

  "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." Mahatma Gandhi

 "It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play." Dizzy Gillespie

 "Whatever is good to know is difficult to learn." Greek Proverb

 "You miss 100% of the shots you never take." Wayne Gretsky

 "Jazz is music made by and for people who have chosen to feel good in spite of conditions." Johnny Griffin

 "In the midst of creating, a person is raised to another level of consciousness." Charlie Haden

 "Don't think of yourself as a jazz musician. Think of yourself as a human being who plays music." Charlie Haden

 "Notes are an intelligent way of moving from one silence to another." Jim Hall

 "All the sounds of the earth are like music." Oscar Hammerstein II

 "If you believe, you will. If you don't, you won't." Eddie Harris

 "I play the guitar because it lets me dream out loud." Michael Hedges

 "To do a common thing, uncommonly well, brings success." Henry John Heinz

 "Jazz is an art form that depends on its antecedents, there must be respect for the people that have gone before." Jon Hendricks

 "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace" Jimi Hendrix

 "The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand." Frank Herbert

 "You may have holes in your shoes, but don't let the people out front know it. Shine the tops." Earl Hines

 You can't be digging deep and expect not to come up with shit on your face once in awhile." Allan Holdsworth

 "Always be smarter than the people who hire you." Lena Horne

 "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent." Victor Hugo

 "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." Aldous Huxley

 "Everything I do is metal. When I clean my house, it's metal." Scott Ian 

"To me a guitar is kind of like a woman. You don't know why you like 'em but you do." Waylon Jennings

 "To teach is to learn twice." Joseph Joubert

 "The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you." B.B. King

 "Long-term consistency trumps short-term intensity." Bruce Lee

 "That's kind of my goal: to build a new row of meaningful tones." Lee Konitz

 "While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior." Henry C. Link

 "The truth is more important than the facts." Frank Lloyd Wright

 "I want every girl in the world to pick up a guitar and start screaming." Courtney Love

 "When you let your own light shine, you unconsciously give others permission to do the same." Nelson Mandela

 "Music critics get their records for free so their opinions usually don't matter." Marilyn Manson

 "Music is the strongest form of magic." Marilyn Manson

 "One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain." Bob Marley

 "Perseverance is a great substitute for talent." Steve Martin

 "Jazz is the continual pulsation of the now." Pat Martino

 "Jazz is rhythm and meaning." Henri Matisse

 "Don't worry, be happy." Meher Baba/Bobby McFerrin

 "Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread. Without it, it's flat." Carmen McRae

 "To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all." Peter McWilliams

 "Only become a musician if there is absolutely no other way you can make a living." Kirke Mecham

 "Jazz is a verb, it's more like a process than it is a thing." Pat Metheny

 "The main thing in my life...is that I really need to go home and practice." Pat Metheny

 "Most guys at Berklee are going to wind up truck drivers." Pat Metheny

 "My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener." Pat Metheny

 "In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am." Charles Mingus

 "Wrong is right." Thelonious Monk

 "Jazz is my adventure." Thelonious Monk

 "Anybody talented in any way - they're called eccentric." Thelonious Monk

 "A genius is the one most like himself." Thelonious Monk

 "Man, that cat is nuts!" Thelonius Monk on Ornette Coleman

 "Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going." Wes Montgomery

 "I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case and throw in a piece of raw meat." Wes Montgomery

 "Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts." Jim Morrison

 "Feel is a lot more important than accuracy." Peter Mulvey

 "Without music, life would be an error." Friedrich Nietzsche

 "In music, the passions enjoy themselves." Friedrich Nietzsche

 "I am a devout musician." Charlie Parker

 "Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget all that crap and just play." Charlie Parker

 "Listen, listen, listen." Joe Pass

 "It ain't braggin' if you can back it up!" Jaco Pastorius

 "A chimpanzee could learn to do what I do physically. But it goes way beyond that. When you play, you play life." Jaco Pastorius

"You're not going anywhere new unless you get lost from time to time".  Nicholas Payton

"No matter how long you play the guitar, there's always something else to learn." Tom Petty

 "Art is the elimination of the unnecessary." Pablo Picasso

 "Music gives a soul to the universe." Plato

 "Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!" Harry Potter

 "I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to." Elvis Presley

 "There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres." Pythagoras

 "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music." Sergei Rachmaninov

 "Listen, I don't care about the guitar; music is the main thing. I just happen to play the guitar." Jimmy Raney

 "If the rhythm section is really swinging it's such a great feeling - you just want to laugh!" Emily Remler

 "It is in learning music that many youthful hearts learn to love." Ricard

 "If you're not prepared to be wrong you'll never come up with anything original." Sir Ken Robinson

 "Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment." John Rohn

 "You don't get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour." John Rohn

 "Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." John Rohn

 "I simply want to reach a level where I will never cease to make progress." Sonny Rollins

 "I'm fortunate that I'm making a living at it now because I'm not equipped to do anything else." Sonny Rollins

 "Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz." Sonny Rollins

 "Like a boxer's punch, one good note is all it takes." Angel Romero

 "If you are touched by music you are touched by love in a very pure way." Pepe Romero

 "The guitar is a meditative tool to touch God and find love within yourself." Pepe Romero

 "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt

 "If someone can relate my guitar solo to an exercise in a book - yow! That's no fun at all." Joe Satriani

 "In Spring! In the creation of art it must be as it is in Spring!" Arnold Schoenberg

 "Wes played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible." Ronnie Scott

 "The guitar is a small orchestra. Every string is a different color, a different voice." Andres Segovia

 "If music be the food of love, play on." Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

 "Making music should not be left to the professionals." Michelle Shocked

 "Jazz is not background music." Horace Silver

 "As long as you've got your horn in your mouth, you're developing." Zoot Sims

 "Sometimes, you don't need a $5,000 guitar - you need $5,000 worth of lessons." Chris Smither

 "My main goal is to tell a story." Stephen Sondheim

 "A lot of people approach risk as if it's the enemy when it's really fortune's accomplice." Sting

 "Music is an addiction, a religion, and a disease. There is no cure. No antidote." Sting

 "A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence." Leopold Stokowski

 “Don't try to understand it. Feel it” - TENET

 "Imitate, assimilate, and innovate." Clark Terry

 "Music is a form of prayer." Toru Takemitsu

 "I am a gardener of infinite time." Toru Takemitsu

 "My teachers are Duke Ellington and nature." Toru Takemitsu

 "You have to practice improvisation, let no one kid you about it!" Art Tatum

 "Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life." Leo Tolstoy

 "I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else." Lily Tomlin

 "The hippest thing you can do is not play at all. Just listen." Lennie Tristano

 "Any problem you can't solve with a good guitar is either unsolvable or isn't a problem." Unknown

 "I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people." Vincent van Gogh

 "All the Strats have personalities of their own and feel completely different." Stevie Ray Vaughan

 "If you're gonna make a mistake, make it so loud everybody else sounds wrong." Joe Venuti

 "It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail." Gore Vidal

 "The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music." Kurt Vonnegut

 "The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think." Horace Walpole

 "This gig pays too little for me to be nervous." Frank Wess

 "We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams." Willy Wonka

 "Do or do not. There is no try." Yoda

 "Words are the pen of the heart, but music is the pen of the soul." Shneur Zalman

 "My job is to awaken possibility in other people." Benjamin Zander

 "Shut up 'n play yer guitar." Frank Zappa

 "Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny." Frank Zappa

 "Paths cannot be taught, they can only be taken." Zen Proverb

 "If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing." Zimbabwean Proverb

 "We're not on the outside looking in, we're on the outside looking out." John Zorn