Gunther Schuller Quotes

By the time I was a teenager, I knew I wanted to be an artist. I was a born draftsman and liked all forms of art, so I just knew that's what I wanted to do.

I was born to be a musician.

I am proud to be able to claim that, from the age of nineteen, I've managed to earna living entirely as a composer.

I wouldn't know any other way to live except to be an artist. I'm not very good at anything else.

That's what my life is, writing songs.

I knew I wanted to be an artist at age 5 or 6. I always drew. At 8, I was permitted to study.

I always knew that I wanted to be an artist.

I knew that I was going to have a life as a musician, because I always felt the pull. I don't remember ever having to make a choice.

In my next lifetime, I want to come back as a composer.

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.

I knew from the age of five what I wanted to do. The one thing I could do was draw. I couldn't draw that much better than some of the other kids, but I cared more and I wanted it badly.

I have to say, I feel a weird sort of calling in filmmaking that I didn't feel with other things. I feel like there are things in life you want to do, and then things you are called to do, and hopefully you can allow yourself to want to do whatever you're called to do.

Man, I just feel so fortunate to be a jazz musician at all. I have a hard time thinking of it any other way. It's such a fulfilling vocation. I love it.

I think I will never stop working with music; it has become a part of who I am.

I could see no other way of doing something with my life apart from music.

I have a life and do a lot of things, and so far my work has been my life. If I was a painter no one would question me about my age. I'm an artist, I hate saying that.

I always find it fascinating to ask people, why they've chosen to live their life as an artist? Why be an actor, a singer, an author, a filmmaker? I've heard such inspiring answers to that question.

Music is what I am, everything else is what I do.

I realised music was my calling, and I am one of those who's strongly bound by an infectious enthusiasm and passion.

I felt like that was my calling. I just didn't know how I was going to get my voice out of Edmonton, but I definitely knew that music was what I was going to do with my life.

Define your priorities, know your values and believe in your purpose. Only then can you effectively share yourself with others.

I'm a person of the arts. I love the arts very, very, very much. And ah, I'm a musician, I'm a director, I'm a writer, I'm a composer, I'm a producer, and I love the medium. I love film very, very much. I think it's the most expressive of all of the art mediums.

Purpose has to do with one's calling - deciding what business you are in as a person.

It is not from choice that my life is music and nothing more, but when one is an artist what else can he be? When a whole lifetime is too short to attain the heights he wants to reach, how then can he devote any of the little time he has to things outside of his art?

I was a songwriter; that was the torch I carried. This is an honorable profession. This is what I do.