[. . . ] a number of flawed individuals can often add up to a brilliant social unit.
When I pitched headforemost into the world I landed in the crib of Negroism.
Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.
There is nothing to make you like other human beings so much as doing things for them.
I maintain that I have been a Negro three times--a Negro baby, a Negro girl and a Negro woman. Still, if you have received no clear cut impression of what the Negro in America is like, then you are in the same place with me. There is no The Negro here. Our lives are so diversified, internal attitudes so varied, appearances and capabilities so different, that there is no possible classification so catholic that it will cover us all, except My people! My people!
There is no single face in nature, because every eye that looks upon it, sees it from its own angle. So every man's spice-box seasons his own food.
Those that don't got it, can't show it. Those that got it, can't hide it.
These days I don't look to other people with the objective of trying to steal their licks, although I've got no objections to stealing them if that seems like a good idea. I'm sure that I'm still influenced by Mark Knopfler and Eddie Van Halen as well. . . . . . I can't play like Eddie Van Halen. I wish I could. I sat down to try some of those ideas and can't do it. I don't know if I could ever get any of that stuff together. Sometimes I think I should work at the guitar more.
The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. . . The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us.
If you treat life well, life is usually good to you. And I love life. There's a long-standing affair between us.
Never forget that the subject is as important as your feeling; the mud puddle itself is as important as your pleasure in looking at it or splashing through it. Never let the mud puddle get lost in the poetry-because, in many ways, the mud puddle is the poetry.