“I’m sorry that I did not become the world’s first black classic pianist. I think I would have been happier.”

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

I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else’s. That’s always been my dream.

I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.

I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don’t think the black people are going to rise at all; I think most of them are going to die.

If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.

I’m a real rebel with a cause.

When a child is gifted, people try to help that child.

Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.

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.

I know I’m different, but I don’t think about it.

I was not reluctant to become a singer. Singing has been an activity I’ve done my whole life, without thought.

Music is the center of my life.

That’s a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.

Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking the new inventive phrases we make up to describe things – all that to me is jazz just as much as the music we play.

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

I grew up on a lot of early Beatles, DC5, Cream, Clapton, Page, Beck and Hendrix.

Every musician wants to do something which will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did it with ‘Stairway to Heaven.’

People are flowers. Music is water. Musicians are the hose.

Rock stars come and go. Musicians play until they die.

I think it’s time to travel, start gathering some real right-in-there experiences with street musicians around the world.

I’m just a guitarist in a kick-ass rock and roll band. What more could I ask for?

When I tried to play characters that strayed from who I am it ended in disaster. People didn’t expect me in comedies or musicals.

If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that’s what it’s all about.