John McLaughlin Quotes

The whole point of working and practicing your whole life is so that you're ready when that moment arrives; when the inspiration arrives, you are ready to be at the disposal of inspiration.

In a way records are like paintings. Instead of using paints and brushes we use sounds and instruments.

You can have the greatest player in terms of mastering an instrument and you could be yawning your head off when you hear them. So, it's not what you do, but the way you're doing it and in the end that's all that we have

Absolutely, all guitars are different. You can go into a store and grab five guitars, all the same model, and even though they look identical they're not identical. They play differently, they feel a bit different and they sound slightly different.

When I hear a great musician, I can feel his life inside the music.

In a certain sense, these were lessons I learned by playing with Indian musicians. The rhythmic forms that they use are very complex, and very challenging. In order to play in fifteen, or eleven, or seven or even five, you have to have mastered that time in order to be able to be free with the music.

When you open box after box of old comics and they're ALL "Archie," you have suffered a trauma from which it is difficult to ever recover.

The biggest government waste: The death penalty. An individual death-penalty case could climb to $100 million, much of it spent at the litigation level. Also, DNA evidence has exonerated nearly 300 death-row inmates.

Music speaks from spirit to spirit and in that sense you could call it a true spiritual language.

I practice all the scales. Everyone should know lots of scales. Actually, I feel there are only scales. What is a chord, if not the notes of a scale hooked together?

I never read comics growing up. I didn't have money and I don't like to touch paper.

I don't have any particular goals in making a recording. In a way the recording is itself the goal. The music comes into my mind, and from there the main job is to give form to it.

There are two kinds of success. One is musical or artistic and the other is commercial.

I'm not any different from you or the guy down the street or across the globe, we're all connected in some way and hopefully my music can integrate that feeling of human connectedness.

I believe everybody is spiritual and no one is any more spiritual than anyone else.

I think I'm built like a painter. I have friends who are painters and they reflect a similar psychological attitude towards their work. They don't know what's coming next, they just wait for the message, for orders to come and then off they go on their next project.

There is really no spiritual message that I'm trying to convey with my music, it's just a personal thing. I really believe that the more personal we get, in a way, the more universal the implications.

I'm never trying to preach to anybody with my music, but I'm aware of the universal nature of the human experience and I try to reach out and connect with people in that manner.

When Indian musicians play a raga it's very restrictive. But, in a way these restraints are essential to liberate yourself through them, if that makes sense. I'm very much of this school of rhythm, it's the direction I'm drawn in when I'm writing and improvising.

Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?

I was dealing with a lot of spiritual questions like "Who am I?" "What is God" "What is the meaning of life?" All of these questions that I think we can either face head on or choose to ignore, it's up to us.

The moment you start to talk about playing music, you destroy music. It cannot be talked about. It can only be played, enjoyed and listened to.

The music dictates to me which instrument I use. I'm basically waiting for orders as it were.

For me, rhythm is a type of divine mathematics in a way. No matter where you're from, we can all understand the mathematics of rhythm. I try to apply this mathematical thinking to my playing.

Everyone can lock into the rhythm on a tune. It's organic in nature. It connects the band as a whole and connects the band to the audience.

When the music arrives in my mind, it gives me the direction and the form at the same time. It's integrated into the music itself.

I just want to keep exploring music and hopefully the orders will keep coming in and I'll be able to keep growing the interior and exterior sides of my life.

If I can get out of the way, if I can be pure enough, if I can be selfless enough, and if I can be generous and loving and caring enough to abandon what I have in my own preconceived silly notions of what I think I am - and become truly who in fact I am, which is really just another child of God - then the music can really use me. And therein lies my fulfillment. That's when the music starts to happen.

My entire life is dedicated to music, and at my age, that makes a lot of years! But all the work and dedication is only that I'm able to forget myself and let the music do the 'talking.'

Spirituality is worthless if it's not practical. Music is my work. I am a musician.

The mathematics of rhythm are universal. They don't belong to any particular culture.

Interplay and interaction are the integral parts of music - they're as important as the notes.

Music that touches the transcendental aspect of a human being is reserved for a marginal audience

At the risk of sounding hopelessly romantic, love is the key element. I really love to play with different musicians who come from different cultural backgrounds.