I am Charles Mingus, half black man, not even white enough to pass for nothing but black. I am Charles Mingus, a famed jazzman, but not famed enough to make a living in this society.

Most customers, by the time the musicians reach the second set, are to some extent inebriated. They don't care what you play anyway.

Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me, the way I feel, through jazz, or whatever.

Whatever coast he's on, a man should be himself. I don't write in any particular idiom, I write Charles Mingus.

I always thought that no matter what kind of work people did, they should involve themselves totally with all the discrimination they ran into.

Jazz is the language of the emotions.

If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music.

Thelonius Monk went over to Bird and Bud Powell and said, 'I told you guys to act crazy, but I didn't tell you to fall in love with the act. You're really crazy now.'

They're singing your praises while stealing your phrases.

I've got a feeling that if it's so easy for you - the struggle and the initiative are not as strong as they are for a person who has to struggle and therefore has more to say.

If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats

In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am.

Everything I do is Mingus.

Bach is how buildings got taller. It's how we got to the moon.

If you think this is weird, just look at yourselves.

Making the complicated simple is true creativity.

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

I never heard my music played the way I heard it in my head.

My music is evidence of my souls will to live.