Life has many changes. Tomorrow it may rain, and it's supposed to be sunshine, 'cause it's summertime. But God's got a funny soul, he plays like Charlie Parker.

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 was always doing revolutionary things, things that would alert people, so they would stop being so subservient.

I'm too busy playing. When I'm playing I don't pay attention to who's listening. When I was listening I listened to symphony orchestras, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Stravinsky. You don't listen to one instrument; you listen to music.

It (jazz) isn't like it used to be. The guys aren't together. They're all separated. Individuals now. Bird was a symbol. It was a clique, a clique of people. Who all believed in one thing: gettin' high. And playin'.

I am Charles Mingus. Half-black man. Yellow man. Half-yellow. Not even yellow, nor white enough to pass for nothing but black and not too light enough to be called white.

My music is evidence of my soul's will to live.

Just because I'm playing jazz I don't forget about me. I play or write me, the way I feel, through jazz, or whatever.

What do you think happens to a composer who is sincere and loves to write and has to wait thirty years to have someone play a piece of his music?

If someone has been escaping reality, I don't expect him to dig my music.

My son's a painter. All through school his teachers tell him he's a genius. I tell him to paint me an apple that looks like an apple before he paints me one that doesn't. Go where you can go, but start from someplace recognizable.

In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am.

Jazz is the language of the emotions.

Our nights didn't begin until after noon. Because in the old days, you'd start Birdland at 8:30 or 9 pm and play until 4 in the morning. Then you'd go out to the corner and talk to a couple of musicians -- I used to talk to Oscar Pettiford a whole lot -- you'd stand there till 7, 8 or 9, or else go down to the jam session at Minton's.

My music is evidence of my souls will to live.

Most customers, by the time the musicians reach the second set, are to some extent inebriated. They don't care what you play anyway.

Tastes are created by the business interests. How else can you explain the popularity of Al Hirt?

Since the white man says he came from the evolution of animals, well, maybe the black man didn't. The white man has made so many errors in the handling of people that maybe he did come from a gorilla or a fish and crawl up on the sand and then into the trees. Of course, evolution doesn't take God into consideration. I don't think people learned to do all the things they do through evolution.

If Charlie Parker were a Gunslinger, There'd be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats.

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