A Quote by Pharoah Sanders

[John Coltrane] liked my qualities as a person and that's the reason why he let me play with him. It wasn't what I was doing musically or my instrument or anything like that. He let me play whatever I wanted to play.
I do so play an instrument! I play air! I play the air with my fingers, and I'm in touch with the deepest emotions within. It took me a while to learn that whatever I feel like doing is the right thing. If I want to play an invisible instrument, I will.
Anything you can do to express yourself is a form of art. That's why I love my craft so much. I always wanted to play other artists. If I can't play an instrument, then I want to play a character that can. There is an artist behind everything, and I think that's beautiful.
I can't write anything for myself. I can write when I hear like [John] Coltrane play something; I used to write chords and stuff for him to play in one bar. I can write for other people, but I don't never write for myself.
I'm doing a film called 'Black Mass' where I play James Bulger. The reason to play him is obvious to me. He's a fascinating character. It's not like anything I've done before on that level. I'm very excited to slide into that skin for a little bit.
I just want to play like Jimi Hendrix. I love other forms of music and wish I could play classical piano, or saxophone like John Coltrane, but that will never happen. Because my nature is to play electric guitar really well and to emulate my heroes from the late 1960s.
I decided that I want to live the rest of my life happy with what I'm doing. So when I play tennis again, I have to play it for the right reason. I don't want to play to get my No. 1 ranking back. I don't want to play for the attention, or to earn more. I don't even want to play because the world wants to see me do it, even though it's nice to know that the world is interested. I only want to play because I love the game, which is the reason I began to play at age seven in the first place.
Charlie Christian had no more impact on my playing than Django Reinhardt or Lonnie Johnson. I just wanted to play like him. I wanted to play like all of them. All of these people were important to me. I couldn't play like any of them, though.
I feel very fortunate for audiences to have been so gracious as to allow me to do pretty much any role that I felt I could do. They let me play a president. They let me play a lawyer. They let me play a hit man. They let me play a father. They let me play Howard Saint.
That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar.
That was the reasoning behind learning to play bass, and then after that it was more like it was neat to play songs together - for me to play bass and for him to play guitar
Earl Scruggs had this thing that it wasn't just the technique or even the instrument. It was him. There was this soulful quality that came through that made you - if you're somebody like me who was, I guess, supposed to play the banjo, it made you stop in your tracks, and you couldn't do anything until you got done hearing him play, and then immediately you'd have to go try and find a banjo.
Duane Eddy is somebody I wanted to play like. I discovered him before The Beatles, and he totally got to me. He sent me a note back in 1977 and said that he really liked what Cheap Trick were doing. That's one of those 'Wow!' moments, you know?
I would never have wanted to play with Magic Johnson, I would never have wanted to play with Michael Jordan, I would never have wanted to play with Karl Malone or John Stockton in my prime. We wanted to play against the Shaqs, the Kobes.
I liked to win, but more than anything, I loved to play the way I wanted to play
I don't really write for fun; it's not an enjoyable experience. For me, art, or whatever the hell it is I do, has always been a refuge from that which makes me want to tear my lungs out. That's why I play like I play; I'm not into entertainment.
I was brought up not to be selfish or self-centered. So if you play somebody who isn't so lovable, you can play that person and no one will turn on you. I don't want to play that person in real life. Because then people won't like me so much.
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