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" Sometimes I sound like gravel, and sometimes I sound like coffee and cream. "

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" When I'm on that stage, I assume honor. I assume compensation, and I should. "

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

" You get racism crossing the street; it's in the very fabric of American society. "

" I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever. "

" I'm not a blues singer, I'm a diva. "

" All the time, there was the weight of my community's expectations on my shoulders. "

" The protest years were over, not just for me but for a whole generation, and in music, just like in politics, many of the greatest talents were dead or in exile, and their place was filled by third-rate imitators. "

" Desegregation is a joke. "

" Did you know that the human voice is the only pure instrument? That it has notes no other instrument has? It's like being between the keys of a piano. The notes are there, you can sing them, but they can't be found on any instrument. That's like me. I live in between this. I live in both worlds, the black and white world. "

" I try to swim every damn day I can, and I've learned to scuba dive and snorkel. "

" I'm a real rebel with a cause. "

" What I was interested in was conveying an emotional message, which means using everything you've got inside you sometimes to barely make a note, or if you have to strain to sing, you sing. "

" 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. "

" As a political weapon, it has helped me for 30 years defend the rights of American blacks and third-world people all over the world, to defend them with protest songs. To move the audience to make them conscious of what has been done to my people around the world. "

" I think the rich are too rich and the poor are too poor. I don't think the black people are going to rise at all; I think most of them are going to die. "

" At this crucial time in our lives, when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don't think you can help but be involved. "

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

" I wasn't a jazz player, but a classical musician, and I improvised arrangements of popular songs using classical motifs. "

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

" When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist. "

" I didn't get interested in music. It was a gift from God. "

" You feel the shame, humiliation, and anger at being just another victim of prejudice, and at the same time, there's the nagging worry that maybe... you're just no good. "

" It's an artist's duty to reflect the times in which we live. "

" I'll tell you what freedom is to me: no fear. I mean really, no fear! "

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

" I flirt all the time. I like men! I don't think we can do without them. "

" I think that the artists who don't get involved in preaching messages probably are happier - but you see, I have to live with Nina, and that is very difficult. "

" I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going. "

" 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. "

" I have to be composed; I have to be poised. I have to remember what my first piano teacher told me: 'You do not touch that piano until you are ready and until they are ready to listen to you. "