Overall my race hasn't been a problem. I'm a black artist with white skin. At the end of the day you have to sing what's in your own soul.

You never know where a blessing can come from.

I play guitar, piano, bass and percussion.

I try to keep my ear to the streets without sacrificing who I am as an artist. If a song needs a drum machine I'll use a drum machine. If it needs a drummer, I'll use a real drummer.

I always try to be a trend setter. That's what I always tell young people when I'm giving them advice. To go with their heart and don't follow the trends.

OK, so truth hurts - but what else does truth do?

I would walk down the hall with my guitar and play for anyone that would listen. As a young kid I was really driven and I was going to make it happen no matter what.

I still have a passion for the music, which is such a beautiful thing. I still wake up in the middle of the night out of a dream and have a melody in my head, and run to my piano.

I have enough love to last me a lifetime! Thank God I'll never lose my imagination and my passion. That's really what it is. I'm still passionate about what I do.

I dont plan on stopping anytime soon.

My first album came out in 1979.

What we need and what we want is to moralize politics, not to politicize morals.

A smile is the expression of ecstasy of life.

Privilege is when you can afford to sit back and criticize others who have to fight for the things you take for granted.

Talent always rises to the top

I am a person of faith: I am a person who will believe practically anything on no evidence at all.

The peak of empathogens can be characterised as earthly paradise in comparison to the heavenly paradise of LSD and hallucinogens of that category.

That is what poetry can do. It speaks to us of what does not exist, which is not only better than what exists, but even more like the truth.

Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity.

The Encyclopedia - the advance artillery of reason, the armada of philosophy, the siege engine of the enlightenment.

Shri Ramakrishna use to say, "As Long as I Live, so long do I learn". That man or that society which has nothing to learn is already in the jaws of death.