Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

You've got to learn to leave the table When love's no longer being served".

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.

You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it

There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

fiction is founded on truth....unless things did happen,people couldn't think of them.

I am never unhappy, you can achieve that as well.

I've mellowed quite quickly.

Water....I'm thirsty not dirty.

I've been guilty of most of the stuff that's been said about me to some degree. And if I ain't done it, I probably will.

Coming to grips with the reality that our planet is not the only one harboring intelligent life the universe.

I am bad at memory - this is why I shoot pictures.

Yuyeh sesh. Despise your heart. Ni weh sesh. I have no heart.

If peace is not In Nature's beauty, Then where is it, where?

No one can resist the idea of a crippled genius.