I think I have a pugnacious style. My style is not pretty. I don't use words like "amber" or "opaque. "
There are still horrible things that go on because of the myth of race, but we don't have to succumb totally.
Do not fall asleep in your enemy's dream.
That split is inside all Americans. There are contradictions inside all of us about color and race. We've learned to cover them up and live with them and pretend that deep cleavage is not there. We all bear that illness.
As a writer, you don't know what the hell you're doing. You're just doing it. You hope it works out well.
Our thoughts, our language, are always at a distance from whatever they're trying to describe. We're dreamers and - since we only have one life, and if we screw up we can get in a world of trouble - we're very intense dreamers. That's the beauty and the terror of being human beings: We just have these symbolic languages, these dreams, and that's all it ever is. There is no American or Frenchhistory. There are all these dreams that are floating around. People construct them and fight with them and criticize them, and the world goes on. I don't think the stars pay much attention.
A great artist transforms our world, removes scales from our eyes, plugs from our ears, gloves from our fingertips and teaches us to perceive reality differently.
You know, people get frustrated because their loved ones who have Alzheimer's, oh, he doesn't recognize me anymore, how can I recognize this person, if they don't recognize me? They're not the same person. Well, they are the same person, but they've got a brain disease. And it's not their fault they've got this disease.
The way I look at music, what I'm interested in is not necessarily creativity - in many ways I think creativity is overrated, actually. What I think is important is authenticity. I want to hear music that has the resonance of the people. I want to hear music that is an amplification of them. Because then, I can experience the people. But because the music has become so institutionalized, everyone is learning and regurgitating the same material in the same way.
And there, right in the middle of it, I find 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us. ' There is no slightest suggestion that we are offered forgiveness on any other terms. It is made perfectly clear that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven.
I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless, robots who protect them and their property.