“If where I want to go is far away, I’m not there in an instant.”

Water’s water and that’s why it’s beautiful.

The ways of fear, and the new awareness, the ways of love.

I’m in no hurry: the sun and the moon aren’t, either. Nobody goes faster than the legs they have.

The history of human consciousness is marked by the battle between the old awareness.

Other times when I hear the wind blow I feel that just hearing the wind blow makes it worth being born.

To not ever feel myself living, To only know myself in others’ eyes, reflected.

My process for the parodies is that I get an idea for a song and then get approval from the artist and then go in and record it and probably try to get it out as soon as possible.

I need to hear something about how he`s going to bring people together in the spirit, hopefully, of Martin Luther King Jr., and if that`s not heard, then we`ve got to constantly challenge him.

It becomes more important to me as time goes on to make every album the best thing I’ve ever done, so it’s a lot of self-imposed pressure that also kind of slows me down a bit.

I don’t feel like a person who takes risks. Yet there’s something within me that must provoke controversy because I find it wherever I go.

All I am is what I’m going after.

You take a guy like George Clooney who goes out there to Darfur, and gets things done! That’s magical. He’s done a great thing.

I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, when it was almost a holiday when a black act would go on Ed Sullivan.

You’re going to get a sense of what the hell’s going on there. Boy, you’ll wake up fast when bullets are flying over your head.