I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.
I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they're not alone.
We have ordered things so long in a certain way, we are numb. Nobody dares question it. This is what is wrong, symbolically, with America.
I'm just human, I have faults like anyone
Through music you can become sad, joyful, loving, you can learn. You can learn mathematics, touch, pacing... Oh my God! Ooh... Wow... You can see colors through music. Anything!
Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel... through music... Whew... you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.
Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.
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
Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.
It's logical that people from bad times will reflect their feelings in their communication. Music is part of the communication. If you lived it, you can do it.
I believe in racial memory too. I'm sure I've got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
It's time to take a look at my failures and stop calling them successes. Now I can start working at something that can use me best.
It doesn't matter to me what is going on today because my music encompasses every kind of mood that exists in human beings. That's my stick.
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.
This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.
Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.
It's a good time for black people to be alive.
What is love but a prelude to sorrow...with heartache ahead for your goal.
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.
It was always Marx, Lenin, and revolution - real girl's talk.
My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you're from the same place, you'll feel the jargon and know exactly what's happening. Same with any neighborhood cat. What he sees and hears and feels and lives makes him what he is. That's what blues is.
That is why we fly from the inner void, since God might steal into it. It is not the pursuit of pleasure and the aversion for effort which causes sin, but fear of God. We know that we cannot see him face to face without dying, and we do not want to die.
I applied for a scholarship to Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. I knew I was good enough, but they turned me down. And it took me about six months to realize it was because I was black. I never really got over that jolt of racism at the time.
Desegregation is a joke.
