As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.

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.

Writing is like going underwater - thank you for being there when I come back up.

I write because I have to

I had no shoes and I pitied myself. Then I met a man who had no feet, so I took his shoes.

I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too much patience of this kind.

To have never done anything but make the eighteenth part of a pin, is a sorry account for a human being to give of his existence.

One cannot always be a hero, but one can always be a man.

My heart is so intoxicated with love that I have no wish to speak.

If we could read minds, we wouldn't need headsets.

You know, I haven't written as much as most other writers. Certainly maybe those who keep a more regular schedule accomplish more.

What you say about this world I do not quite agree with; I think it a very good world, and only requires a person to be reasonable in his expectations, and not to trust too much to others.