Thelonious Monk

[on Ornette Coleman] Man, that cat is nuts!

I find my inspiration in myself.

If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.

Play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing even if it does take them 15, 20 years.

I’m famous… ain’t that a bitch?

The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of someone else.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

Jazz speaks for life. This is triumphant music.

Music is the shorthand of emotion

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.

I still do what I love, and I don’t really think about it. I try to make a beautiful show, so people go home happy. That’s my biggest aspiration: to make people happy.

The true artform is being a human being.

The reward for playing Jazz is playing Jazz.

By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.

There is nothing more stuntastic than rapping in front of an orchestra.

I’ve tried all my life to avoid copying. If I can’t be myself, there’s no point being in Jazz.

You can cage the singer but not the song.

You have to understand the styles and it’s good to study those that came before us.

You can have tone and technique but without originality you ain’t really nowhere. Gotta be original.

I don’t really get nervous, I prepare. When the music messed up in the beginning, it tapped into my nerves and when you’re nervous and vulnerable, something special and something different can happen.