“I believe in racial memory too. I’m sure I’ve got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.”

Every day has its emotional difficulties. I miss my mother whether I’m singing her music or not.

Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.

Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.

I love the classics but there are many new ideas to be made into reality. I’d rather be concerned with my own thing. There are many masters of classical piano so I’ll leave it to them.

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.

My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That’s how I see my voice.

I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about… Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

Desegregation is a joke.

The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.

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.

We have the purveyors of hatred who take every single incident between people of two races and try to make a race war out of it and drive wedges into people. And this does not need to be done.

We are special because we’ve been united not by a common race or ethnicity. We’re bound together by common values. That family is the most important institution in society. That almighty God is the source of all we have.

Most troubles are unnecessary. We have Nature beaten; we can make her grow wheat; we can keep warm when she sends blizzards. So we raise the devil just for pleasure–wars, politics, race-hatreds, labor-disputes.

Yet Mr. Rockefeller has systematically played with loaded dice, and it is doubtful if there has ever been a time since 1872 when he has run a race with a competitor and started fair.

Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.

I shall feel I have done my race a service. Other considerations are of minor importance.

On one hand, I think it’s very important to talk about race and talk about gender, because if it’s not talked about, then we won’t progress.

My attitude is govern as if you’ve run your last race. That’s not to say I’ve run my last race, but govern with a liberation and a freedom; change your mind frame to operate that way.