I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes. It could be homophobia, it could be white supremacy, male supremacy, imperial arrogance, class subordination or whatever.

The blues aren’t pessimistic. We’re prisoners of hope but we tell the truth and the truth is dark.

To be an intellectual really means to speak a truth that allows suffering to speak.

The capitalist culture of consumption... does not provide meaningful sustenance for large numbers of people.

It's so easy to begin to demonize someone you think is so far removed and as the demonization begins to expand, it ends up being everybody but your friends. After a while everybody else but you. That is a slippery slope that is so easy to slide down, and that's what is dangerous.

We will not allow this day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial to go without somebody going to jail.

For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.