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

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

Let my children have music! Let them hear live music.

If you think this is weird, just look at yourselves.

Everything I do is Mingus.

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.

Anybody can make the simple complecated. Creativity is making the complecated simple.