"Just because a cat has kittens in..." - Quote by Malcolm X

“White America is in the minority.”

“I'm with an old family" was the euphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks' cooks and maids who talked so affectedly among their own kind in Roxbury [Massachusetts] that you couldn't even understand them.”

“Once I was, yes. But now I have turned my direction away from anything that's racist.”

“My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can't imagine how often I've tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne - to beat her down, hide her.”

“I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes, but I laugh, and eat well, and grow strong.”

“I feel fortunate that I've had a lot of songs recorded by other people, because I take my songwriting very seriously. It's only those people that have followed me over the years and really know my work that know how serious I am about all of it - including the way I look. You can't take my high heels from me, you can't have my long fingernails, you can't take all this hair from me, because it's part of this thing that I've become. I wouldn't want to give any of it up. Do I have to be ugly to be a songwriter? This is the way I am, and it's what I choose to be.”

“The map isn't always the territory, and you have to kind of walk through it to get a feel for it.”

“The imagination disposes of everything. It creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are the whole of the world.”

“If things are real, they're there all the time.”