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

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 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.

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

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.

No one has the right to demand that your body be something other than what it is.

I've always envied the kind of coach who could go completely out of his mind and nobody would know the difference.

Time makes me stronger Well,there's nothing more to say.

Use your time to bathe yourself in the gift. Move your hand across the canvas. Go to museums. Make this into an obsession.

Being appointed Elder Professor meant very much taking over the shop, in that the professor in those days controlled all the moneys.

I know my strengths. Painfully aware of the weaknesses. There's many. I love sports. So working towards a common goal, that's exciting to me.

Poetry offers the fairest hope of restoring our lost unity of mind.

Be virtuous and you will be vicious.

Technologies will come and go, so you need to be able to both ask and answer the question: What do you do as a company, why do you exist?

I bite the skin on the side of my fingernails.