Sometimes it seemed like the truth was a bandy-legged soul who dashed from one side of the world to the other and I could never find him.

God is the color of water. Water doesn't have a color.

I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!

You have to choose between what the world expects of you and what you want for yourself.

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.

First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.

If you have the material it will form itself as a kind of connective tissue.

People don't realize you're blowing over changes, time changes, harmony, different keys. I mark a point in my solo where it's got to peak at point D I go to A, B, C D then I'm home.

I come to the understanding that maybe what was on the inside was more important, and that your outer covering didn't count so much as folks thought it did, colored or white, man or woman.

I put headlights in Ford vans. I still drive a Ford.

It is hard to find romance in the present because there's nothing left to the imagination.

But I don't understand God. I don't understand how he could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea.

We are never so defensless against suffering as when we love.

to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.

I can't speak with authority about Emeka Anyaoku. I just didn't know him that well.

I think the Internet was the saving grace for Public Enemy. Before that, travelling the world saved Public Enemy.

... it does not do to tell great people anything unpleasant.

We get used to a certain kind of colour of form or format, and it's acceptable. And to puncture that is sticking your neck out a bit. And then pretty soon, that's very acceptable.

I don't expect our leaders to be free of mistakes, I expect our leaders to own up to them.

If we start without confidence, we have already lost half the battle and we bury our talents.

It is a great paradox - almost everyone wants to improve his circumstances but almost no one wants to improve himself.