If Martin Luther King looked at the Obama administration and saw an intimate connection with Wall Street, he'd be very critical. If he saw drones being dropped on innocent people, he'd be very critical. If he saw rights and liberties violated by secret policies of the government, of the kind we've seen by the National Security Agency, he'd be very critical.

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

Philosophy is fundamentally about how you come to terms with living your life and trying to do it in a wise manner, and, for me, that means decently and compassionately and courageously and so forth.

Part of the problem is we had so far to go, given the deep homophobia in our society. But, the movement is very real. The movement is very real.

I try to, in my own fallible way, speak the truth.

We live in a predatory capitalist society in which everything is for sale. Everybody is for sale, so there is ubiquitous commodification - be it of music, food, people, or parking meters.

Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.