Thelonious Monk

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

If my own work had more importance than any others, it’s because the piano is the key instrument in music.

I don’t consider myself a musician who has achieved perfection and can’t develop any further.

I find my inspiration in myself.

If you really understand the meaning of be-bop, you understand the meaning of freedom.

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

If you have something in your life worth celebrating, you can put it in a blues song.

I still love the whole history of Jazz. The old things sound better than ever.

I’m trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it’s difficult is ’cause I’m changing all the time.

Each time I have the opportunity to play, it’s another chance to tell the truth.

We all played bad before we played good.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

In fact, I heard Bird first, and had got well into listening to him. You know, it’s the kind of accidental thing that awareness of a player is: what’s available, what somebody happens to play for you.

The true beauty of music is that it connects people.

90%, 100% are going there to hear the singing. The story is another thing. Nobody’s interested in the story. Happiness is happiness.

It’s about getting the sound to flow from your body and allowing that sound to get to the piano.

Jazz isn’t a what, it’s a how.

[On urging Nyro to tell Barbara Streisand that ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ had been personally written for her] It’s not a big lie.

Anyone who doesn’t give [his debut album, The College Dropout] a perfect score is lowering the integrity of the magazine

Playing is my way of thinking, talking, communicating.

Jazz singing is like pornography. You can’t say what it is, but you know it when you see it.