Charles Mingus Quotes

I have a certain avoidance of reality that makes fantasy an ideal choice for me.

You either have fans who stick with you, or they don't. It comes down to making music that people connect with and great fans.

'Ernest Borgnine' is sort of my version of Woody Allen's 'Purple Rose Of Cairo' in that it's about the occasional difficulty of coming to terms with the cold hard facts and the temptation to escape into another world - like movies, for example. I'm a pro at escaping.

It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for human beings. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we're awake.

You couldn't not like someone who liked the guitar.

Humor (is) the process that allows one to brush reality aside when it gets too distressing.

The beginning of suffering is often a refusal to look at the situation as it really is.

Reality is the only obstacle to happiness.

Music. I could not go without that. My mind would not let me be without music. I hiked the trail in 1995 - before there were iPods or music on our cell phones or even cell phones. So I was truly out there with just my thoughts. After a few days there was a continuous loop of songs playing silently in my mind.

To restore a sense of reality, I think Walt Disney should have a Hardluckland.

We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality, we create it to be able to stay. I believe we have always done this, used images to stand and understand what otherwise would be intolerable.

What's happened to me,' he thought. It was no dream.

Most people cant' deal with reality, but indulge heavily in fantasy and fear.

he'd once believed that the answer lay somehow in the music he created, he suspected now that He'd been mistaken. The more he thought about it, the more he'd come to realize that for him, music had always been a movement away from reality rather than a means of living in it more deeply. .. he now knew that burying himself in music had less to do with God than a selfish desire to escape.

escapism isn't good or bad in itself. what is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to.

I have found that when calculating what no one has calculated before, like my observing sessions on the mountain, my mental acuity peaks. Ironically, these are the times that I would flunk the reality check normally reserved for mental patients and dazed boxers: What is your name? What day is it? Who is the president of the United States?... I do not know, and I do not care. I am at peace with my equations as I connect to the cosmic engines that drive our universe.

I've been escaping my whole life. Since I was a little child, I escaped into the movies on the other side as an audience member. I escaped by going into the movies and sitting in the movies all day long.

You are living in a dream of your own creation. Let it be the dream of a lifetime, for that is exactly what it is.

They must remember that they are constantly on the run, and that the world's reality is actually expressed by their escape.

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead.

You can't view inflation as a perception issue. Price rise should be seen as a reality. What is available for a consumer should be seen for what it is. There should never be an attempt to view price rise as a perception issue as a means of escaping the reality of price rise.

Why, after all, must everyone like music? That they are missing something is just the lover's opinion.

There are two kinds of world: the one we dream about and the real one.

When a man is not disposed to hear music, there is not a more disagreeable sound in harmony than that of the violin.