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.

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.

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.

Do not resist the flow of your life because it's your destiny.

Before your greatest victories, you will always fight your greatest battles. Stay in the Fight.

I like The Eiffel Tower because it looks like steel and lace.

The world is cheapened when everyone sees it with a marketers eye.

I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they're the first to be rescued off sinking ships.

The only place I've found peace in my life is in church. I owe my life to God.

Don't mind what people say to you, find out what you have in yourself and do your best, that is the only hope in life

One thing in my defense, not that it matters: I know something Carter never knew, or Helene, or maybe you. I know what "nothing" means, and keep on playing.

What do they call it, Y.O.L.A., you only live once? I think people are sort of gravitating towards that.

The first need of a free people is to define their own terms.