Jason Moran Quotes

Working with the doctors is a fascinating two-way process. I am interested in what they suggest about why I'm the way I am. But if they could make me 'normal', I wouldn't want that. I've been like this for so long, it's what makes me .

I'm a nut, but not just a nut.

I'm crazy and I don't pretend to be anything else.

In the end I'm the only one who knows me.

There's never going to be a great misunderstanding of me. I think I'm a little whacked.

I think we all choose our style from the ether and whatever is out there.

What you fill your mind with is eventually translated into the words you speak, and then your words create action.

I'm impressionable, that's for sure.

I'm kind of a self-aware and confident person.

Being born was the most influential thing that's ever happened to me, for myself.

I don't know - to be honest, I don't really model myself after anybody.

Man, I used to go around and think, 'Oh my God, what must it be like to be going down the street, and someone asks you, 'What's your name?' and the reply would be, 'John Coltrane.' I couldn't imagine what that would be like.

I'm not crazy in my head. Maybe in everybody else's.

Don't tell me I'm crazy. I'm out here acting natural.

You don't show respect to Frank Sinatra and his great example by trying to sound exactly like him. You show it by sounding exactly like you, and that's the way jazz has always progressed as an art form.

I can't be Stevie Wonder; I can't be Marvin Gaye, but I can be the foundation that I think withholds that mold.

I know I idolise someone like Billie Holiday, but I don't look at her and think I have to imitate her lifestyle, to try and sing like she did.

Everyone has their special strength. And my strength is to have the ball and start good things with it.

You make up a character, there's always gonna be parts of you that, like it or not, shine through.

I have a cult-like following because I exemplify what it is to be a human being.

I am not a role model for anyone.

My self encompasses a lot of different things.

Consciousness is a singular for which there is no plural.

If one day I could get out of here, I would allow myself to be crazy. Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to.

Some people just don't like to be their self. I'm always looking, analyzing myself.