African Americans know about racism, but I don't think we really know the causes. I decided it's first of all a family problem.

As I grow older part of my emotional survival plan must be to actively seek inspiration instead of passively waiting for it to find me.

When we finally stop asking America to love us and begin to love ourselves, we will prosper as a people.

Forgiveness is the key to the recovery of the soul.

People of color, particularly African Americans, feel the stigma more keenly. In a race-conscious society, some don't want to be perceived as having yet another deficit.

Knowing who you are begins in the mind.

Discipline is the servant of inspiration.

The music was as much a gift as sunshine, as rain, as any blessing ever prayed for.

You live your life between your ears.

My color is my joy and not my burden.

Race, redemption and healing - thats my thing.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast,

Bobby Knight told me this: 'There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense.' In other words a good offense wins.

The way that I've always gone about making music, the rule of thumb, has just been to make what I love.

You can be tops in Australia and be unheard of everywhere else

Half of the people in this room are more dressed up than on any other day in the year, and the other half are more dressed down.

It is now in Gordon Brown's - and the Labour party's - best interests for those seeking the prime minister's immediate departure to back off.

When a man teaches something he does not know to somebody else who has no aptitude for it, and gives him a certificate of proficiency, the latter has completed the education of a gentleman.

I think maybe the figures - that's a good word - the figures in my pictures are stand-ins for my own need to make a connection.

You know what I hate? The outdoors. I mean, generally. I don't like outside. I'm an inside person. I'm all about refrigeration and indoor plumbing and Judge Judy.

Magic Johnson is the best player who plays on the ground, and Michael Jordan is the best player who plays in the air.