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" We're all just bags of bones and muscle and hormones; I'll never understand what makes our minds do the things we do. It's like that statue of the monkey holding a skull. We're trying to use a thing we don't understand to understand ourselves. "

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" It's interesting to do other people's music - that's how I learned to play, by learning other people's songs. It's nice to delve into how other people got to where they are. "

Meshell Ndegeocello

Music

Play

People

" I'm a true believer that unless you're Prince or Stevie Wonder - and even Prince is showing that he needs help - not everybody can produce themselves. I'm definitely not that person. "

" Not to be a Bible-thumper, but there really is nothing new under the sun. "

" My favorite period is when we lived in the land of the three-minute song. The Motown thing - I thought they were genius in knowing that's as much as a listener can take. "

" I'm always tryin' to do something new, tryin' to look like a beginner. "

Meshell Ndegeocello

Look

Beginner

" I find myself wanting to make music at the dining room table or in the bedroom - I'm kind of a mobile writer, so I sort of move around the house. But the attic is definitely where I can make the most noise. While everyone on the lower floors screams 'Earthquake!' But no! It's just my bass! "

" My father was a jazz tenor sax player. He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music. "

" Allow the artist to finish the piece of work before you critique it. "

" It's hard being bisexual, omnisexual, multisexual, whatever you want to call it, when people have their agenda and expect you to just represent their agenda. "

" I just try to tell a story with a song, and be able to try to transmit the emotion to you. That's all I'm really trying to do. "

" Any ideas of 'other' are complicated, and otherness is relative to personal ideas of 'normal.' "

" My greatest influence is Jimi Hendrix, and if he's been reincarnated, or if he's looking down, sideways, or looking up, I just wanted to tell him that I love him and thank him for opening doors for me. I just wanted to make it beautiful for him. "

" God looks out for fools and babies. "

" Once you encounter people who are really testing the limits of kindness, that's when you start to build up a shield and close yourself down. "

" Children are born with their own optimism. They have a clarity and a simplicity that we can only wish for. "

" Music is my only guide. I don't care if people pigeonhole me. Miles Davis is my hero. He covered Cindy Lauper and Michael Jackson, and he didn't give a hoot about what the purists said. "

Meshell Ndegeocello

Music

People

" I think leaders are incapable of the strength that passive resistance entails. "

" I stopped beating up on myself. I stopped asking myself why I didn't sell this number of records, why I don't have corporate sponsorship. I just don't buy into any of that anymore. "

Meshell Ndegeocello

Number

Sponsorship

" There's no hierarchy in suffering. I think songs that are transcendent are the ones where everyone can feel something from it, you know? "

" I watch documentaries for information. I watch films to be entertained. "

" You make a choice to make music or be an actor, and people automatically think they can have access to your life. "

" Yes, violence begets more violence, but historically this has been the way of the world. "

" I'm becoming more and more apolitical - I think the most revolutionary thing you can do is just live your life and have a good time. Before they scoop you up on the street or you die. "

" It's very limiting to us as a species, the concept of better-than/less-than. It just seems to be at its end. I'm like, this all fades to black, and it's gone. It's dust. Choose carefully what you obsess about. "

Meshell Ndegeocello

Choose

Gone

" I joke that a person of color would never make a movie like 'Midnight in Paris.' Nostalgia isn't so enticing. "

" I love children. I'd prefer to be around children much more than adults, actually. And I like animals, too. I'm just really into beings who are at ease with themselves. "

Meshell Ndegeocello

Children

Animals

" I think secretly I've realized after my time on the planet that I have no control over what people feel about me or need from me, so I just have a more laid-back approach in my apologies. "

Meshell Ndegeocello

Control

Feel

" I'm pushing ahead on my own - you no longer need a large record company to make you a star. "