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

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

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

" To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world. Black people. And I mean that in every sense. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" I want to shake people up so bad, that when they leave a nightclub where I've performed, I just want them to be to pieces. "

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

" I don't like rap music at all. I don't think it's music. It's just a beat and rapping. "

" 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. "

" The worst thing about that kind of prejudice... is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough. "

" Desegregation is a joke. "

" 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. "

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

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

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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'm a real rebel with a cause. "

" Greed has driven the world crazy. And I think I'm lucky that I have a place over here that I can call home. "

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

" I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat - a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second. "

" 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. "

" 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 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. "