I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death.

Only time, education and plenty of good schooling will make anti-segregation work.

I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.

I'm a musician at heart, I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.

Get me well so I can get on television and tell people to stop smoking.

There's just one thing I can't figure out. My income tax!

I'm in the music business for one purpose - to make money.

People don't slip. Time catches up with them.

Critics don't buy records. They get 'em free.

The whites come to applaud a Negro performer just like the colored do. When you've got the respect of white and colored, you can ease a lot of things.

If I could read it, I could play it.

It's not the people in the South who create racial problems - it's the people who are governing.

Music is emotional, and you may catch a musician in a very unemotional mood or you may not be in the same frame of mind as the musician. So a critic will often say a musician is slipping.

I was a guinea pig for some hoodlums who thought they could hurt me and frighten me and keep other Negro entertainers from the South.

The only prejudice I've found anywhere in TV is in some advertising agencies, and there isn't so much prejudice as just fear.

The Supreme Court is having a hard time integrating schools. What chance do I have to integrate audiences?

The only sport I'm not interested in is horse racing. That's because I don't know the horses personally.

I'm an interpreter of stories. When I perform it's like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories.

The sheriff is at the cash register, and if I don't get a hit soon, I don't know what I'll do.

You've got to change with the public's taste.

I can't bear to see myself even in movies. The feeling is complex. I can't stand the sight of myself.

The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it.

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

I'm not playing for other musicians. We're trying to reach the guy who works all day and wants to spend a buck at night. We'll keep him happy.

Primarily I'm a meat man, although once in a while I toy with a few vegetables.

I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers.

I'm proud of our court. It knocks back a lot of the propaganda the Communists put out about the way America treats her Negroes.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

I may be helping to bring harmony between people through my music.

To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.

There is no way that we know what is going on between the African American and the Asian American. We don't understand what an Indigenous American is. We don't understand what a Latino American is.

Without Social Security, poverty rates for African American seniors would more than double.

It's a pity one can't imagine what one can't compare to anything. Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

It is up to African leaders to show their will and political courage in order to assure that this new pan-African institution becomes an efficient instrument and not a place for endless discussions.

Because I don't play guitar any more, African harmonies and rhythms have been an inspiration to me. I love the raw origin of the sound. It complements my voice and words naturally.

I say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African.

I have a very personal interest. I am a Miami-Dade voter. One of the issues is that my vote and so many other votes of women and African Americans in Florida are being discounted or discarded. I want my vote to count.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, have played an important role in enriching the lives of not just African Americans, but our entire country.

When I became a director, I wanted to convince a very reluctant Sidney into allowing me to go on the journey of his life. Sidney had gone ahead of every other African American actor.

I think one of the political problems we have in this country is the perspective that all soccer moms think alike, all African-Americans think alike.

The adoring crowds and overwhelming Democratic support in the 2008 election was based largely on joy at jettisoning Bush and the appeal of electing a superbly qualified charismatic African American leader.

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or blessed, believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row.

Eight generations of African-Americans are still waiting to achieve their rights - compensation and restitution for the hundreds of years during which they were bought and sold on the market.

An important aspect of the current situation is the strong social reaction against suggestions that the home language of African American children be used in the first steps of learning to read and write.

A genocide in Africa has not received the same attention that genocide in Europe or genocide in Turkey or genocide in other part of the world. There is still this kind of basic discrimination against the African people and the African problems.

Whether or not all this came to pass in an East African ditch, I wouldn't like to say. Perhaps it happened in North Africa or further west, but Africa was definitely the place.

I don't think people have been able to deal with the fact that African American filmmakers can make movies about life and relationships.