Wayne Shorter Quotes

Yeah, my dad bought me a guitar when I was like 10, and I didn't really want it then.

I suppose my little Martin acoustic guitar is quickly becoming a prize possession. It's a lovely guitar. I bought it at the Cambridge Folk Festival in 2001 before I had cleaned up.

I picked up the guitar at 12 yrs old - basically, my mother and father bought it for me for Christmas. I played one at my friend's house; when I say played it, I just played around with it at my friend's house. It just struck me as something I really wanted.

I didn't sing for years and years, but I started playing harp when I was maybe 9 or 10. I had actually wanted to play for years leading up to that, but no teacher in our little town would take me on as a student, because I was too young.

People who have witnessed all the years of me playing, they bring their kids and say, 'I used to see this guy when I was fourteen!'

My stepfather met my mother when I was seven years old, and he was a guitar player. So he caught me messing with his guitar, his electric guitar, and he tried to show me some chords, but my hands were too small.

Now, guitar was pretty cool. Everybody knew something on the guitar. So I wanted to play guitar, but I told my dad if he wanted me to keep studying something, I'd like to study piano.

There's always been a piano around the house, and I've grown up around it. It's a massive part of my life and always has been.

My father bought me a little cardboard accordion, and when I was three I got this little machine.

Well, I guess that early 12 string. The first Martin I bought. I bought it around 1957 with money I earned as a janitor assistant. I bought brand new. I still have that.

This is my seventh decade... and every once in a while I get a hankering to re-visit these songs again... songs with which I have had a great relationship.

The way I look at it, they're all part of my musical diary, and I can listen to any one of them and it will bring up memories of what was going on at that time.

I developed my taste for coffee at five, staying with my grandmother in Connecticut.

Well when I was young, when I was very young, when I was a little boy I don't remember the music I heard, but there was an article in the Brooklyn Daily written by my Aunt about how I could choose phonograph records.

I had an imaginary friend. I don't know when I stopped having an imaginary friend, but my mom and everybody in my family remembers it pretty good. It's definitely true.

If I rewind back to that period, I was 8 in 1977 when 'Star Wars' was in theaters. I saved up money, or my parents got me the 'Art of Star Wars' book.

When I was six years old, Mom and Dad gave me a guitar for my birthday, and Daddy taught me the chords to 'You Are My Sunshine.'

When I was 6 years old, I asked my parents for an organ. I don't have any idea why I wanted an organ.

When I was a teenager, my mom got me a really nice baritone ukulele.

It seems like I've always been singing, at least since I was 5.

My first guitar was a Les Paul that I bought off a friend for 500 bucks. I worked a long time to save up enough money for it.

My first memory of guitar was seeing my father play one.

There was an old acoustic in the house that my mother had given me for my fifth birthday. I took it off the wall and started jamming. I was seven years old at the time.

I focused on the saxophone ever since high school. It wasn't until my album 'Poetica,' which I recorded in 2006, that I went back to the clarinet. It felt like it was waiting for me!

I've been sort of playing music since I was probably 8 years old or something like that.