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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

From the sentimental point of view, it is the last great Polar journey that can be made.

After months of want and hunger, we suddenly found ourselves able to have meals fit for the gods, and with appetites the gods might have envied.