I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.
You can’t help it. An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.
What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.
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.
My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart for wild is the wind.
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.
Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.
There’s no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.
This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.
It’s a good time for black people to be alive.
Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.
I’m just human, I have faults like anyone.