73 Quotes by Thelonious Monk

Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture.

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.

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

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.

The loudest noise in the world is silence.

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

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

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.

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