
It's a new dawn, it's a new day ... and I'm feeling good.

I'm just human, I have faults like anyone

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

What is love but a prelude to sorrow ... with heartache ahead for your goal.

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

I don't like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa.

Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.

I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.

From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.

I'll tell you what Freedom is to me. No fear.

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

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

There's no excuse for the young ...

I look forward to doing my own show, not someone else's. That's always been my dream.

I'm a real rebel with a cause.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.

I don't like drug addicts and she sounds like a cat.

The allusion was that I was actually naked. I loved that. It always, kind of shocked people enough that they became mine immediately.

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

You've got to learn to leave the table
When love's no longer being served.

I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs ... and good ones.

Music is a gift and a burden I've had since I can remember who I was.

To be young, gifted and black!

I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they're not alone.