My music is evidence of my souls will to live.

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.

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.

People often think I'm a faker, but I'm usually honest, in a certain way--in such a way that often nobody believes me!

The relational leader operates not by being known by everyone, but by authentically creating positive relationships with people around her.

I prefer the man who calls his nonsense a mystery to him who who pretends it is a weighed, measured, analyzed fact.

Organizations are successful because of good implementation,not good business plans.

Whatever you believe, you become.

It was at that age that poetry came in search of me.

In zen, it is a cardinal sin to waste time. To waste time is to squander the here and now, which, if you think about it, is all that we have.

Cyling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world

This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.

Every thought you have has an energy that will either strengthen or weaken you.