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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Everyone is influenced by everybody but you bring it down home the way you feel it. — Thelonious Monk Copy Share Image
A note can be as small as a pin or as big as the world, it depends on your imagination. — Thelonious Monk Copy Share Image
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… — Thelonious Monk Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I have to listen to New York; I live there. I wasn't born there, but I've been living there all my life. — Thelonious Monk Copy Share Image
I was playing birthday parties. House-rent parties where they used to sell whisky during prohibition. — Thelonious Monk Copy Share Image
![“Man, that cat [Ornette Coleman] is nuts.” quote by Thelonious Monk](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/b90/thelonious-monk-12808_cat_man-that-cat-ornette-coleman-is-nuts-591_591526.jpg)
