To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

You've got to learn to leave the table When love's no longer being served".

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.

You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it

There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

We’re a couple of shooting stars, Biggs, and we’ll never be stopped.

Once you start asking questions innocence is gone.

Because there is no meaning to be found in the arbitrary nature of things., It's all random. Just as space is blue. And birds fly through it.

You can't be a winner if you're a whiner...wiener.

The society of women is the element of good manners.

The relationship between executive CEO pay, stock performance is tenuous and not easily unscrambled, just one of myriad factors that affect the price of a stock.

Prayer is a powerful thing; for God has bound and tied himself thereunto.

When actors are the real deal, all that star whatever goes right out the window and you're there to tell a story.

I believe that the only true agents of change on a large scale, in this country or anywhere, are young people.

Leadership is based on a spiritual quality; the power to inspire, the power to inspire others to follow