An artist who doesn't have any audience is not an artist.

We need self-confidence in our ability to build Africa. I trust in Mali and I trust in music.

You just have to try before thinking that you can't.

There are some things around us that are not actually useful. I didn't know that before. It's very new for me to understand. That became my way of writing: I can see also the new myself.

It's a great experience just to understand that finally being well known is not the most important thing.

The interesting thing for me is to put together all my influences and all my experiences I got through my traveling with my father.

When you are able to make a living with your job as an artist, that means you have an audience and you have to thank this audience.

Sometimes there are painters or very famous artists who start to become artists after they are dead because an audience or a public know about their art after they die.

When you have a chance to be an artist with an audience in your lifetime, you have to say thanks to your audience. That's a great thing. That's the best thing that can happen to an artist.

You can be a star here in Europe and not be known at all in the United States.

American audiences don't react in the same way as European ones to African music because, I think, Europeans listen to this music through all the festivals that exist here.

To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.

I don't like to practice; I like spontaneity. When I don't play guitar for a week and I pick it up again, I play better.

Class is considerate of others. It knows that good manners is nothing more than a series of petty sacrifices.

Don't overwork your squad. If you're going to make a mistake, under-work them.

You can't plow a field simply by turning it over in your mind.

I condition myself to believe that once the scene is done, once the movie is done, my job is done, and whatever happens after that is none of my business.

There is one thing in life that you can always rely on: life being as it is.

Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one.

The road ahead may be difficult for all Australians, but we need not be divided on partisan lines.

I do things, and other people laugh at them. I rarely know what the joke is supposed to be or why they're laughing.