The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives more fruit.
I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro.
Setting my mind on a musical instrument was like falling in love. All the world seemed bright and changed.
With a guitar I would be able to express the things I felt in sounds.
In the South of long ago whenever a new man appeared for work in any of the laborers gangs, he would be asked if he could sing. If he could he got the job. The singing of these working men set the rhythm for the work.
Life is like a trumpet - if you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it.
Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as a natural symphony.
Courage without conscience is a wild beast.
Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.
Society is just a structure with no soul. The soul is of the individual. One individual outweighs all societies. And, one individual's revolution outweighs all revolutions in the whole of history, because one man can become the womb for God to be reborn.
His voice wore no pants.