“A friend once said, and I found to be true,That everyday people, they lie to God too, So what makes you think, that they won’t lie to you.”

Reality is easy. It’s deception that’s the hard work.

We don’t want people to have expectations of us, but then we have expectations of everybody else.

And deep in my heart. The answer, it was in me. And I made up my mind. To define my own destiny.

God teaches me about reality, so when he tells me to do something, I do, because I’m led to.

I had to confront my fears and master my every demonic thought about inferiority, insecurity, or the fear of being black, young, and gifted in this Western culture.

The only help I need to live, is unprofessional. The only wealth I have to give, is not material. And if you need much more than that, I’m not available.

Place your attention 6 inches above your crown. God is breathing in and out there.

Think black love, think universal love. Just think love.

I believe God will make a way.

I am no longer going to become a fictional character to please people. That’s too much work.

I get out, I get out of all your boxes.

I need to be surrounded by people as passionate and as dedicated as I am.

Be honest, brutally honest. That is what’s going to maintain relationships.

Nobody’s going to force me to do something against my will. What do I owe anybody that I should submit my will to them?

Never underestimate those who you scar.

Let me be patient, let me be kind, make me unselfish, without being blind, though I may suffer, I’ll envy it not and endure what comes cause he is all that I got.

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.

One enemy can do more hurt than ten friends can do good.

Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.

And the process of reading is such a private one. I once came into a room where a friend of mine was reading one of my books, and he clicked his tongue impatiently and shooed me off.

My friends they were dancing here in the streets of Huntsville when our first satellite orbited the Earth. They were dancing again when the first Americans landed on the Moon. I’d like to ask you, don’t hang up your dancing slippers.

My friends and I took songwriting very, very seriously. My hero was and still is Bob Dylan, but also people like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell and that whole generation.

Wine is a turncoat; first a friend and then an enemy.

Having no new companions, nothing remained for him but to read.