“I woke up when I was 14 and went to speak to my mother and scared us both to death.”

Mama tried to save us from the streets, but the streets were too strong.

There’s a time when people give their words to each other it has to mean something. I’m a street cat. I’ve belonged in gangs and when you had a partner, you went down with your partner whether you won the fight or lost it. You went down together.

I’ve always loved War’s Low Rider and Sly Stone’s Thank You, and I just wanted to put my take on them.

A kid who was on welfare, because he refused to steal anybody’s property or take anybody’s money. You found life a lot tougher.

Elton John’s opinion turned the label’s opinion around, all in a day.

I went to jail at 16 for stealing tires off Cadillacs. When I got out I said, Never again.

I didn’t mind working in the clubs, but I resented it being a club where pimps hang out. Because the music that I create is of a higher intellect than that. It not only encompasses pimps, but whores, ballplayers, executives… everybody.

Blacks own so little of the music business, it’s pathetic. But I see that changing soon. Black artists, black businessmen and women will unite.

When I commit, I commit with my whole heart, my whole being. I know the Bible like the back of my hand.

I quit high school on my birthday. It was my senior year and I didn’t see the point. This was 1962, and I was ready to make music.

No one could understand the bond between me and my brother. I struggled to understand the forces that drove his soul in one direction and mine in another.

The women used the music to get their men to relate to them better: “talk to me, tell me what’s on your mind.”

It’s ecstasy when you’re laying down next to me.

One preacher turned me on, another turned me off.

We are all gods, all forces of nature. We can destroy, we can build. We are like oceans and like fires.

Been making love for hours and, baby, we’re still going strong. Girl, this night is ours and I swear I feel it coming on. All I know is when we get through, I ain’t going to be able to move.

You can never know what is and what is not powerful, but you can always find out what the powerful people are scared of.

A state like China looks so powerful, but they are so scared of the Internet, so the Internet is more powerful than them.

When human beings are scared and feel everything is exposed to the government, we will censor ourselves from free thinking. That’s dangerous for human development.

My angst and my insecurity reflect the state’s angst and insecurity. The state is scared too.

People with theories of life are, perhaps, the most relentless of their kind, for no time or place is sacred from their devastating elucidations.

I’m scared to death that I’ll never be afraid

There’s always gonna be people that are scared of it. But at the end of the day you give those bullies, those people, that are so ignorant, if you give them the power to affect you, you’re letting them win

I’m not scared at all… Of the cracks in the crystal ball.