Thelonious Monk

I always wanted to play the piano, and jazz appealed to me.

The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.

I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.

Sometimes it’s to your advantage for people to think you’re crazy.

I say, ‘Play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you’re doing – even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years’.

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

You could go out and eat and come back and the note would still be playing.

I’m still searching even today for a sound, like the guy that’s searching for a home. I haven’t been able to find that completely. I’m satisfied at times with the sound of my guitar… but it is a little sound that I hear but I can’t tell anybody about it. I don’t know how. But if I ever get it, I’ll know.

[On Louis Armstrong] You can’t play nothing on modern trumpet that doesn’t come from him, not even modern shit. I can’t even remember a time when he sounded bad playing the trumpet. Never. Not even one time. He had great feeling up in his playing and he always played on the beat. I just loved the way he played and sang.

Look for the one who’s not smiling and play to that person. Once you’ve got that person, you’ve got the whole club.

In classical music, only two people are important, the composer and the conductor. Everybody else is a serf. In jazz, a thing of beauty is created collectively with everybody getting to express an idea. And that reflects what democratic society is – or should be.

There’s a spiritual satisfaction that one gets from listening and playing good Jazz.

I’m surprised Beyonce liked me. I met Beyonce!!

It’s like an act of murder; you play with intent to commit something.

Jazz is not a what, it is a how.

I’ve had a lot of things to be proud of in my life, but none more than the Jazz festival.

I have a lot of albums yet to do.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

I never thought about being famous or rich. I just thought, Oh, I’ll get a nice little girl and go and play every night, and I’d be happy. And that worked for a while. But the little girl’s mother didn’t trust a guy with a horn.

If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don’t know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.

Sometimes it’s to your advantage for people to think you’re crazy.