Performance Quotes

My philosophy is that I’m an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.

A performer learns with experience and with age. I did not know the future when I left home and started out to begin my career: I started qawaali; then I met Peter Gabriel and was exposed to a lot of new ideas.

Any performer is one person privately and then he’s another person when he steps on the stage.

I was getting to perform with an actor with whom I had never interacted before.

Say not that honor is the child of boldness, nor believe thou that the hazard of life alone can pay the price of it: it is not to the action that it is due, but to the manner of performing it.

I do it because I still get a kick out of it. I still love performing. It keeps me young.

I was really beating myself up about performances and how I looked and this and that.

I still get nervous sometimes before performing.

People come out to see you perform and you’ve got to give them the best you have within you.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how well we have performed or what we have accomplished—a life without heart is not worth living.