Desegregation is a joke.

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

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

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

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.

From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.

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.

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

I'm a real rebel with a cause.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

Once I understood Bach's music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.

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

Funk gospel blues is all out of slavery times out of depression out of sorrow.

Youve got to learn to leave the table when loves no longer being served.

It's logical that people from bad times will reflect their feelings in their communication. Music is part of the communication. If you lived it, you can do it.

Being a competitive dancer is an expensive business - you have to buy the £2,000 or so tail suit and the shoes, and then get yourself around the world to the competitions. And there is not a lot of money to be made in competing.

Sometimes our childhood experiences are emotionally intense, which can create strong mental models. These experiences and our assumptions about them are then reinforced in our memory and can continue to drive our behavior as adults.

Im looking to buy a new boomerang how can I throw the old one out

I've always been a religious person, and I try to think that every disappointment might just be a blessing in disguise.

You know, for one glorious half hour, I was the mother of the president-elect.

Cameras in the courtroom is a great idea.

Because we believe ourselves to be better parents than our parents, we expect to produce better children than they produced.

Nothing is harder to dramatize than happiness.

The details surrounding both my marriage and subsequent filing for divorce are private, and I had hoped to keep them that way for the sake of my family.

The stories a society tells about itself are a measure of how it values itself, the ideals of democracy, and its future.

If you compare the violence in 'Happy Valley' to the violence in something like 'Game of Thrones,' it's nothing. But it is shocking because it's so real and grounded. The characters could live next door to you - they're not in a remote fantasy world.

There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And it's amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor.

I wrote my first book without being to Ethiopia since I was two years old.

You do not want to get married at 22! Especially if you're famous, because girls are going to be throwing themselves at you.

No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happen to say it by chance, they would not even known they had done so.

When I was a child, my father taught me to put up my fists like a boy and to be prepared to defend myself at all times.

So what really gets me is these chickenhawks, who sent our kids to die, without ever serving in a war themselves. They don't know what it's all about.

Christianity is not a theory or speculation but a life not a philosophy of life but a living presence.

'The Sopranos,' for instance, is arguably the best cable show of all time. They could have made a movie, but that show ended so perfectly, it would almost be a disadvantage to make a movie like that. Then again, if you made a 'Sopranos' movie, people would be lined around the block to go see it.

Both my parents instilled an interest in science and mathematics.

We need great prophetic leaders in religion and in spirituality... what we are getting is lacking in vision... not able to engage with the diversity of the culture.

Motivation is just this potion to create stuff, a compulsion to express the truth of my own experiences in this life.

Every economy exists, no matter what the level of democracy, has elements of crony capitalism. It's - given human nature and given the democratic structures, which we all, I assume, adhere to, that is an inevitable consequence.

Achievements in successful export industries, which need highly skilled people, can create an area as flourishing as South Korea and Singapore.