Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker's next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?

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.

There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.

The big stars I felt a kinship with were never the romantic leads. It wasn't Steve McQueen or Robert Redford - it was people like Walter Matthau and Anthony Quinn. My big hero was Tommy Cooper.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

My biggest insecurity is that my personality is too much, and as I get older, it's just getting bigger.

Happiness is dog-shaped, I say.

What do I think of the reverse sweep? It's like Manchester United getting a penalty and Bryan Robson taking it with his head

Wherever I am, if I've got a book with me, I have a place I can go and be happy

Passing into practical life, illustrations of this fact are found everywhere; the distant, or the unseen, steadies and strengthens us against the rapid whirl of things around us.

A true leader is not the one with the most followers, but one who creates the most leaders.

There is a world elsewhere.