Whatever coast he's on, a man should be himself. I don't write in any particular idiom, I write Charles Mingus.

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.

A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.

Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.

Life will treat you according to how you observe its rules and principles.

Love in France is a comedy in England a tragedy in Italy an opera seria and in Germany a melodrama.

To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner.

'The Lorax,'...it's a mythical, woodland creature, right, who's for saving trees. He speaks for the trees because no one else can. Kind of the way conservatives speak for fetuses.

I never want to lose my Canadian-ness...and when I say Canadian-ness, I mean down-to-earth. I like being able to not take myself seriously and to not feel entitled.

I have a sort of sisterly feeling toward him [Ben Affleck]. I want him to do well and grow up and be a happy person and a fully realized man.

You might be a redneck if you give your dad a gallon of Pepto-Bismol for his birthday.

The bee is enclosed, and shines preserved in amber, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar.