“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.”

“There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were”

“You don't have to live next to me / Just give me my equality.”

“What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.”

“How it's so easy for her to not feel anything at all, to be just completely gone, to not be around to see how fucked up she's made me. She got to disappear completely and I feel like I'm about to combust.”

“To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.”

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