Life is like a trumpet - if you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it.

With a guitar I would be able to express the things I felt in sounds.

Setting my mind on a musical instrument was like falling in love. All the world seemed bright and changed.

Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as a natural symphony.

My big ears indicated a talent for music. This thrilled me.

If my serenade of song and story should serve as a pillow for some composer's head, as yet perhaps unborn, to dream and build on our fond melodies in his tomorrow, I have not labored in vain.

I knew the whistle of each of the river boats on the Tennessee.

You can never tell what's in a woman's mind, And if she's from Harlem, there's no use o' tryin

Saving was slow and painful.

Nature was my kindergarten.

You'll never miss the water 'til the well runs dry.

Tangled Moon ~ Sometimes you have to break the rules. Sometimes you have to let go of the past. And sometimes you have to accept the impossible.

Yes, ' Spade growled. 'And when you're slapped you'll take it and like it.' He released Cairo's wrist and with a thick open hand struck the side of his face three times savagely.

She'd risked everything, and here was the result: the raw, warped core of her life.

I early found that when I worked for myself alone, myself alone worked for me; but when I worked for others also, others worked also for me.

Cast off all bonds of prejudice and custom, and let the love of Christ, which is in you, have free course to run out in all conceivable schemes and methods of labour for the souls of men.

I don't care what people's myths are about me.

To the Somali, the Amerikaan is weird, to the American GI, the Somali is an ingrate and a skinny.

We have to implant democracies where there are now dictatorships.

I hope that the friendship between the members will always remain.