Top 40 Thelonious Monk Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Jazz is freedom. You think about that.”

— Thelonious Monk

Featured in: Music Quotes

2. “A genius is the one most like himself.”

— Thelonious Monk

3. “The loudest noise in the world is silence.”

— Thelonious Monk

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

— Thelonious Monk

5. “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

6. “The only cats worth anything are the cats that take chances.”

— Thelonious Monk

7. “Just because you’re not a drummer doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep time.”

— Thelonious Monk

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

— Thelonious Monk

9. “Jazz is my adventure.”

— Thelonious Monk

10. “Everyone is a genius at being themselves.”

— Thelonious Monk

11. “Trying to explain music is like trying to dance architecture.”

— Thelonious Monk

12. “The piano ain’t got no wrong notes.”

— Thelonious Monk

13. “I don’t have a definition of Jazz. You’re just supposed to know it when you hear it.”

— Thelonious Monk

14. “After two takes you’re imitating yourself.”

— Thelonious Monk

15. “I compose my pieces with a formula that I created myself.”

— Thelonious Monk

16. “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

17. “I find my inspiration in myself.”

— Thelonious Monk

18. “Sometimes it’s to your advantage for people to think you’re crazy.”

— Thelonious Monk

19. “I always believed in being myself.”

— Thelonious Monk

20. “I don’t know what other people are doing – I just know about me.”

— Thelonious Monk

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

— Thelonious Monk

22. “I played the wrong wrong notes.”

— Thelonious Monk

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

— Thelonious Monk

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

— Thelonious Monk

25. “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

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

— Thelonious Monk

27. “We have two kids, my wife and myself.”

— Thelonious Monk

28. “I don’t know where jazz is going. Maybe it’s going to hell. You can’t make anything go anywhere. It just happens.”

— Thelonious Monk

29. “All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians.”

— Thelonious Monk

30. “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

31. “I didn’t know there were 2 ten o’clocks in a day...”

— Thelonious Monk

32. “I’d go stupid collecting and counting my money.”

— Thelonious Monk

33. “Everybody in all countries tries to play jazz.”

— Thelonious Monk

34. “I can shoot pool, and I can play ping-pong. I’m pretty good at those games.”

— Thelonious Monk

35. “Be-bop wasn’t developed in any deliberate way.”

— Thelonious Monk

36. “Anybody talented in any way – they’re called eccentric.”

— Thelonious Monk

37. “Its always night, or we wouldn’t need light.”

— Thelonious Monk

38. “Miles’d got killed if he hit me.”

— Thelonious Monk

39. “The majority of juice-heads and winos and junkies arent musicians.”

— Thelonious Monk

40. “I never though much about race.”

— Thelonious Monk

41. “I was playing birthday parties. House-rent parties where they used to sell whisky during prohibition.”

— Thelonious Monk