John Zorn Quotes

I don't really know if I would consider myself anything in particular. I would say I'm inspired in a Hasidic way, but I certainly don't keep all the customs and rules I once did.

I've always been very vocal about my religion. It's a big part of who I am.

People always think I'm Jewish. Actually, I'm a lapsed Catholic.

They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual? They wonder about Solomon and all his wives. In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul and you are that. But we have ways within each other that will never be said by anyone.

Most Kabbalists were theorists who were interested only in pure meditation. But there were so-called 'practical Kabbalists' who tried to apply the power of the Kabbalah in everyday life.

The more you make your thoughts and beliefs into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.

If anything, I label myself as sort of Buddhist. My wife Jane is Buddhist.

I'm not a boxer.

I consider myself half Spanish.

I come from a Muslim family. The label 'Muslim' is one aspect of me, but it's not the only part of me.

Life events will not define who you are. God says who you are.

I identify myself as what I am. I'm half Jewish, like Proust. I have no other way to put it.

A lot of people say I talk like 'country-gangster' almost. I don't know how that's possible or how that happens, but some people say that.

Nothing about being white describes who I am.

Living up to an image that you have of yourself or that other people have of you is inauthentic living.

It’s perfectly natural for me to sit down and talk about meditating and spiritual practice with my friends. But then I realize, how would it sound to a drunk cynical guy in London?

Nobody doubts that he exists, though he may doubt the existence of God. If he finds out the truth about himself and discovers his own source, this is all that is required.

Tell me who you are. You need not tell me your name. Names have power, even human ones. Tell me where you live and what you do with your living.

I am a practicing Catholic, but my lineage is Jewish, so if someone asks me if I'm Jewish, I say yes.

I don't consider my homosexuality a political thing. I consider it a sexual and spiritual thing. I only started going to political rallies to meet women.

We are born perfect, and we will die perfect. The problem is that we create that character in our story that we pretend to be, or that we want to be, and we cannot hide that from ourselves. We know that we are pretending to be what we are not in the name of perfection.

People don't know what Kabbalah is, and so they jump to conclusions. For me, studying Kabbalah is studying - is just - is asking questions. And I encourage all of my children to be that way, and I think people don't understand that. And so they make assumptions and they judge.

You have to utilize who you are in your work. Nobody else can do that: nobody else can pull from your background, from your parents, your upbringing, your whole life experience.

I hear people say all the time, "I'm not really religious, but I consider myself spiritual." I definitely have always been spiritual, being raised by my grandmother on that little acre in Mississippi, indoctrinated, born into the church and the ways of the church.

I have trouble actually describing myself because I'm always suspicious of people who start describing themselves. I'm like, "OK, why are you trying to tell me what you are?"