Music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential.

You get a show where people are jumping up and dancing, but it's not a critical event in the sense of profound catharsis. Essentially it's celebratory.

A whole generation of young whites have involved themselves with traditional Negro music.

Negro music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential. Nothing is sacred. After a decade, a musical idea, no matter how innovative, is threatened.

And when I met Cecil Taylor it was a complete transformation of musical identities. All the tenets that I had grown up with were thrown out the window.

Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.

All the tenets that I had grown up with were thrown out the window.

I find that here in the States, audiences are generally less knowledgeable, from the cognitive point of view, though they are emotionally more receptive.

I can't see any separation between my music and my life. I play pretty much race music: its about what happened to my father, to me, and what can happen to my kids.

In rap music, even though the element of poetry is very strong, so is the element of the drum, the implication of the dance. Without the beat, its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous.

Rap actually took root in the Negro community, and then in the Hispanic community, long before it impacted on the larger American community as a whole.

Did you fail? Try, try again. There is no gain without pain.

Very early, I knew that the only object in life was to grow.

The church the Bible described is exciting and adventurous and wrought with sacrifice. It cost believers everything, and they still came.

Ky still looks at me and I wonder for a moment if he is going to ask me what I am thinking about. But of course, he doesn't. He doesn't learn things by asking questions... He learns by watching.

Even modern wars are fought like revenge tales from some petty grievance.

The great danger of dealing with venture capitalists is the 'slow maybe'.

Be cheerful . Strive to be happy.

I hoped they couldn't run very fast with those stubby little legs and flippers, but they waddled along pretty well.

As long as your robot isn't programmed by like Dr. Evil, I think you're going to be fine.

I'm not an angry woman. I'm not bitter.