Thelonious Monk Quotes

Quotes about:

• There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others.

  Thelonious Monk

  Notes

  130 Copy quote

• The loudest noise in the world is silence.

  Thelonious Monk

  Silence, World, Noise

  142 Copy quote

• Sometimes it's to your advantage for people to think you're crazy

  Thelonious Monk

  Crazy, Thinking, People

  143 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Years, Play

  160 Copy quote

• Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it. A genius is the one most like himself.

  Thelonious Monk

  Thinking, Genius, Done

  166 Copy quote

• Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Trying, Rock N Roll

  124 Copy quote

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

  Thelonious Monk

  Humor, Cat, Deep Thought

  106 Copy quote

• Jazz is freedom. You think about that.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Memorable, Thinking

  112 Copy quote

• Everyone is a genius at being themselves

  Thelonious Monk

  Genius

  19 Copy quote

• When I was a kid, some of the guys would try to get me to hate white people for what they've been doing to Negroes, and for a while I tried real hard. But every time I got to hating them, some white guy would come along and mess the whole thing up.

  Thelonious Monk

  Hate, Real, Kids

  119 Copy quote

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

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Imagination, World

  82 Copy quote

• All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.

  Thelonious Monk

  Math, Musician, Mathematician

  "Down Beat" Magazine, October 28, 1971.

  102 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thelonious Monk

  Play, Important

  113 Copy quote

• It can't be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!

  Thelonious Monk

  Mean, Sound, Different

  66 Copy quote

• Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently.

  Thelonious Monk

  Running, Adventure, Use

  106 Copy quote

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

  Thelonious Monk

  Home, Way, Feels

  91 Copy quote

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

  Thelonious Monk

  Mean, Jazz, Drummer

  89 Copy quote

• It's always night, or we wouldn't need light.

  Thelonious Monk

  Night, Light, Needs

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  46 Copy quote

• A genius is the one most like himself.

  Thelonious Monk

  Genius, Jazz, Monk

  69 Copy quote

• I don't have a definition of Jazz. You're just supposed to know it when you hear it.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Definitions, Jazz

  73 Copy quote

• I don't consider myself a musician who has achieved perfection and can't develop any further. But I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself. Take a musician like John Coltrane. He is a perfect musician, who can give expression to all the possibilities of his instrument. But he seems to have difficulty expressing original ideas on it. That is why he keeps looking for ideas in exotic places. At least I don't have that problem, because, like I say, I find my inspiration in myself.

  Thelonious Monk

  Inspiration, Expression, Ideas

  71 Copy quote

• After two takes you're imitating yourself.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Two, Jazz

  44 Copy quote

• At this time the fashion is to bring something to jazz that I reject. They speak of freedom. But one has no right, under pretext of freeing yourself, to be illogical and incoherent by getting rid of structure and simply piling a lot of notes one on top of the other. There's no beat anymore. You can't keep time with your foot. I believe that what is happening to jazz with people like Ornette Coleman, for instance, is bad. There's a new idea that consists in destroying everything and find what's shocking and unexpected; whereas jazz must first of all tell a story that anyone can understand.

  Thelonious Monk

  Music, Fashion, Believe

  89 Copy quote

• I don't know what other people are doing - I just know about me.

  Thelonious Monk

  People, Doing Me, Knows

  43 Copy quote

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

  Thelonious Monk

  Sound, Ears, Want

  39 Copy quote

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