“The most important thing is, when I do give the music, I’m satisfied with it, that it speaks for what I want to do.”

Sometimes, I feel I am really blessed to be blind because I probably would not last a minute if I were able to see things.

As a matter of fact, wherever I find that law exists, I will not perform in that state or in that part of the world.

You can’t hear me? Read my lips!

Music at its essence is what gives us memories.

I’ve had some incredibly triumphal things happen in my life.

When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.

Change your words into truths and then change that truth into LOVE.

First of all, I’m no better than the next person.

Now some folks say that we should be glad for what we have. Tell me, would you be happy in Village Ghetto Land?

Law and order comes from having respect for one another.

It could have been worse. I could have been born black.

Music is a world within itself, with a language we all understand.

We all have ability. The difference is how we use it.

I think honestly, some people who think they’re gay, they’re confused.

I’m believing that miracles and blessings still exist.

Every day I searched for the star That never was in the sky Now I see that star is on the earth.

The music scene as I look at it today is a little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same – 95 percent rubbish, 5 percent pure.

Its neither politics or religion. Music is the universal love language.

Some musicians, man, you hear the note almost before they hit it. Jimi, Coltrane and Charlie Parker were like that.

For me there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall.

If somebody’s going to represent our music live, I’d like to see it represented with excellence and spectacularly and with really great musicianship.

The way I see it, rock & roll is folk music. Street music. It isn’t taught in school. It has to be picked up.

Music really is a way to reach out and hold on to each other in a healthy way.

I don’t do much recording anymore, but before I really stopped, I was glad to get five, five cent a record. That’s why when I see people today and they complain about what they get, and I picked cotton for $2.50 a day.