American audiences don't react in the same way as European ones to African music because, I think, Europeans listen to this music through all the festivals that exist here.

We need self-confidence in our ability to build Africa. I trust in Mali and I trust in music.

You just have to try before thinking that you can't.

There are some things around us that are not actually useful. I didn't know that before. It's very new for me to understand. That became my way of writing: I can see also the new myself.

It's a great experience just to understand that finally being well known is not the most important thing.

The interesting thing for me is to put together all my influences and all my experiences I got through my traveling with my father.

When you are able to make a living with your job as an artist, that means you have an audience and you have to thank this audience.

Sometimes there are painters or very famous artists who start to become artists after they are dead because an audience or a public know about their art after they die.

When you have a chance to be an artist with an audience in your lifetime, you have to say thanks to your audience. That's a great thing. That's the best thing that can happen to an artist.

You can be a star here in Europe and not be known at all in the United States.

I've been in contact with music since I was four or five years old through my father, because of the interest he had in music and all his musical skills. I finally managed to make that my profession.

What is common becomes sense, but what is sensible doesn't always become common.

With chemicals, it's shoot first and ask questions later.

Only a spiritual being has awareness.

We desert those who desert us; we cannot afford to suffer; we must live how we can.

A mother's got to be there to raise the children. That's all there is to it. I feel badly for those mothers who work hard, and can't do it all the time.

Making one brilliant decision and a whole bunch of mediocre ones isn't as good as making a whole bunch of generally smart decisions throughout the whole process.

Live or die: mere consequences of what you have built. What matters is building well.

Even the most powerful women I know go out of their way to say that they're not really interested in power. Imagine a man saying that.

See the inevitable changes not as threats but as opportunities that can deepen our understanding and bring us wisdom and growth.

I hate losing laughs; they're rare things.