John Lurie Quotes

#1. I'd always maintained an image so that people wouldn't approach me.

John Lurie

#2. Kenny G is not real jazz. I don't even think Wynton Marsalis is real jazz. I don't think Harry Connick Jr. is real jazz. If there is such a thing as real jazz, The Lounge Lizards is real jazz, Henry Threadgill is real jazz, Bill Frisell is real jazz, you know?

John Lurie

#3. It seems like there are always gatekeepers. People between you and the people who are moved by your work. They often make a beautiful thing creepy.

John Lurie

#4. The loss of music is very painful, and I don't revisit stuff unless there is a solid reason to do it.

John Lurie

#5. What I believe to be jazz is constructed and improvised music which is in the air right now. But I don't think that's most people's definition of jazz, you know? We don't know what we're talking about, because we don't know the definition.

John Lurie

#6. I've had encounters with animals that have been really mystical. I've always been really into animals. But the way they appear in the paintings, they come from my mind's eye more than: 'I'm gonna draw a dog now.' It isn't thought out: 'Now I'm gonna draw a bird.' They just appear.

John Lurie

#7. I remember seeing McCoy Tyner in concert, and thinking that the music was incredible, but wanting to be invited in. I figured that humor was the way of letting the audience in. I've gotten a hard time about it, but I love to be funny onstage.

John Lurie

#8. I play music, I paint - these things come from your depths.

John Lurie

#9. I had a mystical experience when I was in my late teens, early 20s, and I spent years trying to recapture that.

John Lurie

#10. When I was about 17 I knew that I was going to be serious about music. Before that I thought, fairly certainly, that I would be a writer. Before that, I thought I would be a forward in the NBA. And before that I thought that I would own a snake farm.

John Lurie

#11. I guess I just want everything to be available immediately.

John Lurie

#12. What do you know about music? You're not a lawyer.

John Lurie

#13. The thing with sculpture is, 90% of the time, when I pass a piece of sculpture, it's in public or somewhere, and it's just, how inconvenient that that's there. It takes up so much room, and it's so oppressive.

John Lurie

#14. I've been through this fame thing before, when the band was big in '80, '81.

John Lurie

#15. When I first got sick, they told me I had a year to live, and I was writing my memoir really fast. There were really weird things happening with my nervous system and my heart and stuff, and it didn't look like I was gonna make it, so I was writing really fast, and then I couldn't write anymore.

John Lurie

#16. If someone who knows what's going on comes up and says they liked the music, I appreciate that.

John Lurie

#17. But, you know, I'd be happy just making music.

John Lurie

#18. My musical education started in the limelight, because I found myself surrounded by real musicians, but after my career had taken off.

John Lurie