“My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That’s how I see my voice.”

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They’re not easy to know, so if you don’t tell them how you feel, you’re not going to get anywhere, I feel.

I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I’m not going.

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about… Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.

Desegregation is a joke.

The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else’s. That’s always been my dream.

I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.

I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don’t think the black people are going to rise at all; I think most of them are going to die.

If I get an idea I put it on tape and somebody else writes it out.

I’m a real rebel with a cause.

When a child is gifted, people try to help that child.

Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

I know I’m different, but I don’t think about it.

Working is part of life, I don’t know how to distinguish between the two. Work is an expression of life.

The first trip of the Pony Express was made in ten days – an average of two hundred miles a day. But we soon began stretching our riders and making better time.

The censor’s sword pierces deeply into the heart of free expression.

But we do not merely protest; we make renewed demand for freedom in that vast kingdom of the human spirit where freedom has ever had the right to dwell:the expressing of thought to unstuffed ears; the dreaming of dreams by untwisted souls.

Music to me is a voice, my voice, it’s my way of expressing what colours can I bring in, what emotions, what feel. What ideas can I bring out from these instruments that would make this song come alive.

You are so much more resilient than allowing people to suppress your truest expression of self.

Style for me is some one who figures out who they are. What works on them. What they feel good in and develops that. Develops their character. And the outer expression of their character is what is style.

Style for me is some one who figures out who they are. What works on them. What they feel good in and develops that. Develops their character. And the outer expression of their character is what is style.