We're not going to play the blues anymore. Let the white folks play the blues. They got 'em, so they can keep 'em.

Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the motherfucker who plays it is 80 percent.

It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.

If somebody told me I only had an hour to live, I'd spend it choking a white man. I'd do it nice and slow.

It's not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.

In music, silence is more important than sound.

I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning... Every day I find something creative to do with my life.

Knowledge is freedom and ignorance is slavery

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.

If you sacrifice your art because of some woman, or some man, or for some color, or for some wealth, you can't be trusted.

Men and women alike have convinced themselves of a dragging belief: that somehow women are incomplete without having children.

We must live harmoniously with our neighbors.

The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

I wasn't Barbie-obsessed. I think my mother might have been my Barbie.

I gravitate towards anything that has a grain of comedy to it.

Madness designates the equinox between the vanity of night's hallucinations and the non-being of light's judgments.

The biggest game I ever played in was probably Don Larsen's perfect game.

True leaders respect and honor authority but are comfortable in its presence.

The U.S.A. has become a nation of determined spectators, willing to watch someone else perform.

I'm not too good at lying still in the sun.