The promise of any artwork is that it can hold us - viewer and maker - in a conflicted or contestable space, without real-world injury or loss.

The silhouette says a lot with very little information, but that's also what the stereotype does.

There's no diploma in the world that declares you as an artist—it's not like becoming a doctor. You can declare yourself an artist and then figure out how to be an artist.

Silhouettes are reductions, and racial stereotypes are also reductions of actual human beings.

If you're a Black artist, you could paint a wall of smiley faces, and someone will still ask you, 'Why are you so angry?'

Im not really about blackness, per se, but about blackness and whiteness, and what they mean and how they interact with one another and what power is all about.

I think really the whole problem with racism and its continuing legacy in this country is that we simply love it. Who would we be without the 'struggle?'

I don't think that my work is actually effectively dealing with history. I think of my work as subsumed by history or consumed by history.

Humor's always been the problem of my work, hasn't it? When working, I feel satisfied when I surprise myself. And when I surprise myself, I wind up laughing.

I have no interest in making a work that doesn't elicit a feeling.

As a child, I was subjected to a lot of spaghetti Westerns and hated them. I wanted the Indians to win - or just not be so sad!

Lo, as I gaze, the statured man, Built up from you large hand appears: A type that nature wills to plan But once in all a people's years.

In America, getting on in the world means getting out of the world we have known before.

Country things are the necessary root of our life - and that remains true even of a rootless and tragically urban civilization. To live permanently away from the country is a form of slow death.

You sense and feel something different than I do, even if we lick the same kitten.

Liberty isn't a thing you are given as a present. You can be a free man under a dictatorship. It is sufficient if you struggle against it.

There is no relationship between the gestures and what an orchestra will do.

You know I won't be no stick-figure, silicone Barbie doll

Well, if you're talking about perfection, I'll show you the image of my backside.

You know, when I'm playing, I think of myself in front of the Wailing Wall with a saxophone in my hands, and I'm davening, I'm really telling it to the Wall.

Instead of me having a breakdown, I'm focusing on me having a breakthrough.