Quotes from Thelonious Monk

I guess, you know, if I didn't make it with the piano, I guess I would've been the biggest bum.

I'd go stupid collecting and counting my money.

Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture.

Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

A note can be as small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination.

After two takes you're imitating yourself.

Those who want to know what sound goes into my music should come to NY and open their ears.

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

The piano ain't got no wrong notes.

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

Everyone is influenced by everybody but you bring it down home the way you feel it.

The only cats worth anything are the cats that take chances.

Be-bop wasn't developed in any deliberate way.

I have to listen to New York; I live there. I wasn't born there, but I've been living there all my life.

I never though much about race.

Don't play everything (or every time); let some things go by... What you don't play can be more important than what you do.

Just because you're not a drummer doesn't mean you don't have to keep time.

I say, play your own way. Don't play what the public want - you play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doing - even if it does take them fifteen, twenty years.

Everybody in all countries tries to play jazz.

All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.

The piano ain't got no wrong notes.

A genius is the one most like himself.

You've been making the wrong mistakes.

Where's jazz going? I don't know. Maybe it's going to hell. You can't make anything go anywhere. It just happens.