“When you are in your heart of hearts, you can see beyond appearances.”

Surrender your whole being to a note, and gravity disappears with one chord.

If you stay in your heart you will always be inspired and if you are inspired you will always be enthusiastic. There is nothing more contagious on this planet as enthusiasm.

The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace.

The worst thing you can become in life is cynical. Cynical is like concrete. and nothing grows in concrete.

You meditate and you got the candles, you got the incense and you’ve been chanting, and all of a sudden you hear this voice: ‘Write this down’

Most people don’t have that willingness to break bad habits. They have a lot of excuses and they talk like victims.

The guitar is your first wings. It’s assigned and designed to unfold your vision and imagination.

There is divinity in your DNA. Live your light.

I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.

I knuckle down with my demons, and with my weaknesses.

Live up to your convictions. You walk in grace or you walk in fear. You can’t have it both ways.

The Devil is like a strainer that separates the mud from the gold.

I would invite all Latin people to do nothing for about two weeks so you can see who really, really is running the economy I am here to give voice to the invisible.

Your mind is a magnet. You don’t attract what you need or what you want; you attract who you are. And I love who I am!

There is no person that love cannot heal; there is no soul that love cannot save.

First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.

To look back is to relax one’s vigil.

The greatest lesson I learned that year in Mrs. Henry’s class was the lesson Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to teach us all: Never judge people by the color of their skin. God makes each of us unique in ways that go much deeper.

Technicolor makes me look like death warmed over.

I love myself when I am laughing. And then again when I am looking mean and impressive.

You cannot look at a person and tell whether they’re good or bad.

My reasoning they may counter; my speech they may distrust; my apparel they may disapprove; my face they may reject; and even my bargains may cause them suspicion; yet my love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest clay.

Evil looks like you and I. I know what evil looks like, and I know that it comes in all shades and colors.

It is the business of a virtuous clergy to censure vice in every appearance of it.