“I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be.”

Music is an art and art has its own rules.

I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs and good ones.

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.

My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart for wild is the wind.

I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever.

This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.

Birds flying high you know how I feel Sun in the sky you know how I feel Breeze driftin’ on by you know how I feel And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me And I’m feeling good I’m feeling good.

I’m just human, I have faults like anyone.

I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.

It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day and I’m feeling good.

You don’t have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.

I don’t like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.

The worst thing about that kind of prejudice is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough.

I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I’ve dreamed.

I’m sorry that I did not become the world’s first black classic pianist. I think I would have been happier.

For some reason, I like seeing people feel emotional.

Edward was always focused, watching and also listening to what others couldn’t see.

It’s fascinating to see how versatile New York City is. It lends itself to being so many different places!

People need role models. They need to see examples of people in peoples’ lives.

My girlfriend told me that she was seeing another man. I told her to rub her eyes.

People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.

One of the regrettable things in my life is that my dad was not around to see my stardom, to see me wrestle or to see what I achieved by the dream I had at an early age, influenced by where he would like to go.

If I’m scared and I’m a coward, why do you guys want to see me fight?