American Quotes

Every day I look forward to getting with my instruments, trying new things.

Black and white players hadn't appeared together in public before Teddy Wilson and I began working with B.G.

I worked hard learning harmony and theory when I was growing up in Chicago in the 1920s.

What drives people to public service is a sense of possibility. If you haven't sensed that possibility you don't get started in the same way, you don't feel you can have an impact.

We don't have a full black community in Boston. Our people are scattered. There's a middle class where I live in Highland Park but it's not like a piece of Washington or Chicago.

On the one hand, there is no reason that a black person needs to live a portion of his or her life being concerned about the people of color around him. On the other hand, if you don't you're crazy.

Food might be more immediately important than history but if you don't understand what's been done to you - by your own people and the so-called 'they' - you can never get around it.

Eyes is the attempt to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement and to create an emotional, intellectual constituency. But what do you do after that? The black community doesn't have institutions that pick up such moments and preserve them.

Everybody needs history but the people who need it most are poor folks - people without resources or options.

If you're black in America, race is a factor in your life. Start with that assumption.

You can kill a revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution.

Let me just say: Peace to you, if you're willing to fight for it.

I believe I'm going to die doing the things I was born to do. I believe I'm going to die high off the people. I believe I'm going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.

No weapon formed against me shall prosper.

The danger with running for president is sooner or later some sound bite is going hit.

Some of the funniest people I know are not screwed up in the head.

Performing with anthrax in the building is not nearly as difficult as performing in a home where you might get stabbed at night.

It's tough to play the right chord on the instrument when there's someone out there who wants to kill you.

If I can get a sanitized version of reality, I'll take it.

I've seen the hell these people go through.

I've learned sometimes you just have to take the bad from people.

I've become fascinated by the idea that it's really achievable to make two or three small improvements in a week and by the end of the year, it's 150 improvements.

I'm not sure how a world leader reacts to the work of a clown.

I'm not a doctor - so I can't describe flashbacks well - but it is like you're living it again.

I'll get to make a lot of money and do some bad sitcoms.

I was never in a mental institution for a long time. I was in psych wards.

I was diagnosed with everything from schizophrenia to multiple personality disorder.

I think I wanted to write a book about the relationship between the victim and perpetrator in which the victim agrees to remain silent.

I ran into an extraordinary doctor. He got up inside my head and figured out how my brain processed things, what my core values were, what my inner dialogue was.

I perform in the major leagues of what I do. It's incredible.