Making the simple complicated is commonplace.

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.

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.

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.

Thelonius Monk went over to Bird and Bud Powell and said, 'I told you guys to act crazy, but I didn't tell you to fall in love with the act. You're really crazy now.'

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

Most of the soloists at Birdland had to wait for Parker's next record in order to find out what to play next. What will they do now?