“I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen, and so I swung into action and wrote a poem, and it was miserable, for that's how I thought poetry worked: you digested experience and shat literature. [from "Mingus at the Showplace"]”

“Unless a man has trained himself for his chance the chance will only make him ridiculous.”

“One well-cultivated talent deepened and enlarged is worth one hundred shallow faculties.”

“The difficulties hardships and trials of life the obstacles ... are positive blessings. They knit the muscles more firmly and teach self-reliance.”

“The first law of success ... is concentration: to bend all the energies to one point and to go directly to that point looking neither to the right nor the left.”

“I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen, and so I swung into action and wrote a poem, and it was miserable, for that's how I thought poetry worked: you digested experience and shat literature. [from "Mingus at the Showplace"]”