You have to rely on yourself and your associates - gifts don't come from above; you're going to win them, or you won't have them.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

I am not plain, or average or - God forbid - vanilla. I am peanut butter rocky road with multicolored sprinkles, hot fudge and a cherry on top.

What I do isn't black music, it's just my music.

I had a terrible time with feminists in the Seventies. They hated me, those women. I think they hated everything.

I have a tendency to be awfully big-hearted and it's very hard for me to say no, even when I need to.

The suit does not represent the businessman anymore. Nor does the loud shirt represent the rock star. The same man can now wear both.

Man is to be found in reason, God in the passions.

I come from the highest class of all. I am a third-generation celebrity.

I hated Woody Woodpecker and Scooby-Doo, but I was a cartoon freak.

I feel like people who actually know how music works on a technical level need to explain it to the rest of us a little more often.

Looking at the creative process is like looking into a crystal: no matter which facet we gaze into, we see all the others reflected.