Zorn Quotes & Sayings

Empathy is the greatest virtue. From it, all virtues flow. Without it, all virtues are an act. — Eric Zorn

He wondered what a coward did in his position and if it was the same thing he was doing now. — Claire Zorn

This sense of the safe-deposit box as a totem of responsible security inspired me to rent a box myself shortly after the birth of our first child ... . — Eric Zorn

The magic that you find in surf music, I think, is really timeless. You know, when I was very young, I was in a surf band. Surf music is an instrumental music that still means a lot to me, not in an nostalgic way, but as something that really gets to the heart of the guitar itself. — John Zorn

Classical stuff takes a lot of rehearsal time and preparation, but with stuff that involves improvisation, you can over-rehearse it and it gets stale. You don't want it to be too comfortable. In fact, a good sound check, a good rehearsal usually means a bad performance. — John Zorn

I have no doubts. I know what gets in the way and I know what encourages me to do more work. — John Zorn

It breaks even. We lose ten, twenty grand every year. But then the people who are working say, Look, I'll kick this back in, I don't need to take this profit share. It's very cooperative. — John Zorn

Actually, there was another band where we were three girls, around '84 when I met John Zorn, called Sunset Chorus. It was just bass and drums and guitar- we didn't make any records but we played a lot of different clubs in New York. — Ikue Mori

I see myself and many artists like me as the torchbearers through these dark ages. — John Zorn

I run around, I listen to a lot of music, go to a lot of concerts. And when I see someone that gases me, I try to go out of my way to involve them somehow in what I'm doing or get involved in what they're doing. — John Zorn

You know, when we were kids, we had to go to a theater to see a movie. And then television came in and you had to wait until midnight to see the one you wanted to see. Now, all you've got to do is go to a store and buy it and you can watch it whenever you want! — John Zorn

I don't ascribe to the idea of the ivory tower composer who sits alone in a room composing his masterpieces and then comes down from Mount Sinai with the tablets. It doesn't work like that. The job of a composer is putting something down on a piece of paper that will inspire the person who's playing. — John Zorn

It was like hundreds of roads he'd driven over - no different - a stretch of tar, lusterless, scaley, humping toward the center. On both sides were telephone poles, tilted this way and that, up a little, down...

Billboards - down farther an increasing clutter of them. Some road signs. A tottering barn in a waste field, the Mail Pouch ad half weathered away. Other fields. A large wood - almost leafless now - the bare branches netting darkly against the sky. Then down, where the road curved away, a big white farmhouse, trees on the lawn, neat fences - and above it all, way up, a television aerial, struck by the sun, shooting out bars of glare like neon. ("Thompson") — George A. Zorn

I'm not a practicing kabbalist. I'm not a spiritual master. I'm not a rabbi. I don't - but it's part of who I am. — John Zorn

You need to believe in something that's bigger than yourself. I think that's what everybody wants to believe in that. — John Zorn

The most important equation to solve in life is the human equation. — Robert Zorn

I used to look at composing music as problem solving. But as I get older, it's not about problem solving anymore. There are no solutions, because there are no problems. You just turn the tap and it flows out. — John Zorn

I was always an outsider, proud of being an outsider. I always reveled in the outsiders. — John Zorn

I feel like there are messages. I feel like there are angels. I feel that there is a legacy and an energy. And I feel that it's possible to tap into that. — John Zorn

Not so cold, some snow fell. I went inside the log cabin and said goodbye to Mother, she was so alike grandmother, just younger. — Anders Zorn

We're not on the outside looking in, we're on the outside looking out. — John Zorn

With all the fucked up things going on in the world, just the fact that we can wake up in the morning is kind of a miracle. — John Zorn

It's a blast to watch. It's a lot more interesting live than it is on record. I mean, it really is a theatrical event. It's a sporting event! Cause you never know what's gonna happen. — John Zorn

I have not practiced saxophone since 1980. I mean, not one note. I do not pick it up in my house, and that's the end of it. — John Zorn

Anything that gets in the way of my focus to create gets cut out of my life. It's not easy. Sometimes it's family. Sometimes it's friends. Sometimes it's the ability to have a relationship. — John Zorn

You can't buy time or save it, common idioms notwithstanding. You can only spend it. — Eric Zorn

My solo music - I get up onstage, I improvise and it's my improvisation. When I get up onstage with Fred Frith and Mike Patton, then we're improvising together. Then it's not my music; it's our music. — John Zorn

For about seven years. I really like it there. There are a lot of great musicians. The scene is very open. A lot of stuff going on. People's ears are really open, they are not closed. A lot of scenes here, people just get tunnel vision and are into one thing. — John Zorn

Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self-assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle. — Eric Zorn

I started the label Tzadik to support an entire community of musicians, not just Jewish musicians. But the radical Jewish culture movement was begun in a lot of ways because I wanted to take the idea that Jewish music equals 'klezmer' and expand it to, 'Well, Jewish music could be a lot more than that.' — John Zorn

I'm not striving for happiness, I'm trying to get some work done. And sometimes the best work is done under doubt. Constantly rethinking and re-evaluating what you're doing, working and working until it's finished. — John Zorn

It doesn't sound like a gun shot. But then if I've been shot in the head, my perception of these things is probably off. — Claire Zorn

His mouth hardened into a tight line for a moment. "I plead for nothing." His voice deepened. "I beg for nothing." He paused, searching her eyes. "You are my heart. I beg you to forgive me, beautiful. You come before everything to me. You even come before my own pride. I'm a Zorn warrior. I have fought many battles in war. I carry scars from lost lives I took in battle. I hunt and I do it well. I have never been captured and I have never been brought to my knees." He reached out to caress her cheek. "Then I look into your eyes and remember your laugh. I am there, beautiful. You have caught me and I am on my knees to you. — Laurann Dohner

Each record in the 'Book of Angels' series is meant to be unique in terms of the compositions. — John Zorn

I have wit in my work and a sense of humor, but I do not use irony in any way. — John Zorn

I think it's weird that people think someone who's not a politician could be the mayor of Chicago. — Eric Zorn

Music is about people for me. It's not about sounds. It's about people; it's about putting people into challenging situations. And for me, challenges are opportunities. — John Zorn

Discipline is important as long as you're having a good time. What I always did was I did what I enjoyed, and I think that's why I don't have any grey hairs. — John Zorn

I don't know if God exists and I don't care. God's will and design for this temporal and spatial vastness, if any, is so patently, deliberately impenetrable that I doubt any mortal has a grasp on it. The very inexplicability of sad events like the tsunami, like the AIDS crisis or even like the cancer death of the father of one of my daughter's 2nd-grade classmates last week are, to me, reminders to focus on our obligations to one another, not to the infinite; to honor the creator, if any, by honoring creation itself and hoping that's good enough. — Eric Zorn

If you're a fan of American roots music, you won't want to miss 'Awake My Soul
The Story of the Sacred Harp.' Filmmakers Matt and Erica Hinton have done a fine job capturing the history, sound and spirit of this unusual but compelling art form that, trust me, you don't have to be religious to appreciate. — Eric Zorn

Man, Dick Dale shreds. He's welcomed to anybody's bar mitzvah. — John Zorn

No one sits in front of a drum set and thinks they invented it all out of whole cloth. The fact that the set is there means that you've got some dues to pay to Baby Dodds. — John Zorn

What happens when you get to the age of 60 is that you have no more doubts. I know why I'm here on this planet. I know what I need to do. I know what is a distraction and what isn't. — John Zorn

I'm getting ready to write a piece now, and it's been six months thinking about it, changing the instrumentation, changing the name, doing more reading. — John Zorn

That is a lot of the reason I do what I do, to really spread the word and spread information and turn people onto different things they may not be, y'know, aware of. That is what Naked City is certainly about. — John Zorn

It's a matter of keeping people on a spontaneous edge. — John Zorn

Great musicians accept everything that they hear and find something good. They take what they like and they throw away what they don't like. — John Zorn

I'm constantly in doubt about what I'm doing, I'm constantly tortured, and that's why I say happiness is irrelevant. Happiness is for children and yuppies. I'm not striving for happiness, I'm trying to get some work done. And sometimes the best work is done under doubt. Constant rethinking, and reevaluating what you're doing, working and working until you feel it's finished. And that's an interesting point too, that you've got to know when to stop. Sometimes there's a magical moment when everything comes together. — John Zorn

People are great. But there's people who you get together with and you talk and you go away feeling energized, you feel inspired. And then there's people who you talk with and you go away feeling horrible, feeling drained, feeling like you're incapable of doing anything. Those people are psychic vampires and I now stay away from them. — John Zorn

I don't play favorites with people. My basic philosophy is that the only way to make the world a better place is by bringing something beautiful to every single person you run into at every moment of the day, so how can you play favorites with somebody? — John Zorn

the desire to breathe that was the problem. — Claire Zorn

If someone is a straight jazzhead, or a straight metalhead, or straight classical, they have a very narrow range of what they allow into their lives. But the people who listen to what we put out into the world have to be open-minded. Because we're so pluralist. — John Zorn

Well, in Japan, I have got a group of musicians that I have worked with a lot, that concentrate just on the hardcore stuff, say, that Naked City has been working on. We have like a repertoire of sixty songs now. — John Zorn

Whatever exists is inevitably flawed. Buddha, in his detachment from the world, finds all its hustle and bustle ridiculous because he has nothing to do with it. A cynic finds the feelings of his fellow human beings ridiculous because he has no feelings himself. Someone who does not play soccer thinks it ridiculous to chase around after a little leather ball for hours at a time. He doesn't bother to ask whether this game might be a lot of fun. All he sees is the ridiculousness of grown men playing like little boys. People who do anything will no doubt appear ridiculous to people who do nothing. A person who acts can always make a fool of himself. A person who doesn't never runs that risk. We might even say that life is always ridiculous but death is never ridiculous. — Fritz Zorn

That was my challenge as a composer. Like with anything, to keep yourself interested in doing what you do, you set yourself challenges. So I said, Okay, I'll try to write a hundred tunes in a year. — John Zorn

Like you have seven people with their hands up. I gotta make a choice. Y'know, that's tough. Sometimes I gotta go with someone that has an idea and make several calls in a row, because they got an idea. — John Zorn

Don't waste your breath proclaiming what's really important to you. How you spend your time says it all. — Eric Zorn

You can't be idealistic in this world and not be crazy. — John Zorn

One thing that I do ask myself when I'm in the creative process is, 'Does the world need this?' — John Zorn

You can't sit down and write 300 compositions in a three-month period and think that you're doing it all by yourself. Obviously, there's something going on here. And whether you want to call it channeling or being connected to a creative force or knowing your history and knowing where you belong, that's, you know, maybe a personal thing. — John Zorn

I have art. I have music. I have the history, this legacy behind me that I can look up to. This is what I believe in. If you want to call it God or spirituality, that's all up to you. Basically I believe in something that's bigger than myself, and that gives my life meaning. — John Zorn

When I'm writing, sometimes it gets to that place where I feel like the piece is writing itself and I'm trying not to get in the way. — John Zorn

As soon as you get a certain amount of attention, then everybody kinda wants to start taking pot shots at you. All your old friends that supported you don't support you any more. — John Zorn

I don't control it at all. It's all up to the musicians in the group. They control it. They make all the cues, and they tell me what they want, and then I act like a mirroring device so that everyone can see what the cues are. — John Zorn

That's where I began to ask questions that maybe don't have one specific answer. And the more people you get answers from, the richer the environment becomes. — John Zorn

One of the reasons I started Tzadik, which is my own label, is to keep things in print. I got tired of labels dropping things out of print when they don't sell. — John Zorn

If you can make art with sound, can't you make music with objects? — John Zorn

He didn't sleep. His mother was too close. He could see every crease on her face, every worry line he'd ever given her. — Claire Zorn

Fear of failure is a ticket to mediocrity. If you're not failing from time to time, you're not pushing yourself. And if you're not pushing yourself, you're coasting. — Eric Zorn

There's no sense talking about priorities. Priorities reveal themselves. We're all transparent against the face of the clock. — Eric Zorn

I have had a very combative relationship with critics because I'm very impatient with people that don't give my work the respect I feel it deserves. — John Zorn

I create work, and I devote myself to the creative process, and I try to, you know, stay pure in that process and be worthy of the messages that I receive. — John Zorn

The space between the notes was loaded. Negative space. — Claire Zorn

isn't there some philosophy about how it's the arts that separate humans from animals?
Really? I thought it was not eating our young. — Claire Zorn

And I try to be as diplomatic as I can, but it always ends up being a psychodrama up there on stage. — John Zorn

The idealists will always be in society, and we will survive. — John Zorn

Eye was a great discovery. He is one of the great vocalists of all time. — John Zorn

I put together the influences of my life in as clear a way as I possibly can, in the same way that Beethoven or Schoenberg or Bach put their influences together. — John Zorn

Now, finally has the elevator arrived. The stairs was about to become a personal inferno. — Anders Zorn

People sometimes have a very hard time accepting change. — John Zorn

I'm constantly tortured, and that's why I say happiness is irrelevant. Happiness is for children and yuppies. — John Zorn

I have a very beautiful life with great friends and I look forward to waking up every day. Every day is a vacation but every day is a workday. I don't want to take vacations because music is my life and if I escape from music, that's the same thing as death. So a vacation is death to me. Sitting on the beach for a week is my idea of hell. That would kill me. — John Zorn

Do you want to walk for a bit? It's probably ridiculously dangerous, but YOLO and what not. — Claire Zorn

I have about two or three people, we don't have an office, we don't even have a dedicated phone line. We do it out of our own homes, and we make it work. — John Zorn