Some of my high school teachers did remind me that I had an excellent imagination when it came to making up excuses.
It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story.
Just the type of music that was around at the same time as I was writing. Some of it was wicked, definitely. But there was just one direction which I thought could be pushed that no one was pushing.

