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

Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

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

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

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.

My music is evidence of my souls will to live.

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

Jazz music is a language of the emotions.

Making the complicated simple is true creativity.

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

They're singing your praises while stealing your phrases.

The life of a devotee is a crusade of which the heart is the Holy Land.

When I hit the skins they all say, 'Damn Kane... You knock out the Bush like a presidential campaign!'

Either get on the boat or get off the boat.

I do have a lucky pair of underwear.

I think that a good mountaineer is usually a sensible mountaineer.

In a city where most of the wealth is controlled by a small few, certain things are overlooked, particularly when it comes to the assertion of privilege.

I don't play against a particular team. I play against the idea of losing

Nobody understands your life, but you.

We can't see and we can't reach the frontiers of our ignorance; we can only approach to it by extending our knowledge.

Rebellion to tyranny is obedience to God.