My music is evidence of my souls will to live.

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.

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.

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.

Teachers should be very careful not to spoil their pupils' taste for poetry for all time by making it a task and an imposition.

If I had not some strength of will I would make a first class drunkard.

The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below.