I think philosophy is all about lived experience, which is to say life in the streets, life in a variety of different contexts.

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

The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of inspiration.

For me, music is in no way ornamental or decorative, it's constitutive of who I am. And that's why, when I say I'm a blues man, that's a very serious vocation - to muster the courage to find your own unique voice, to forge your distinctive style in the world, to leave your imprint in the sands of time in such a way that your singularity, your individuality, remains something that people have to come to terms with.

What does it really mean to be a leftist in the early part of the 21st century? What are we really talking about? And I can just be very candid with you. It means to have a certain kind of temperament, to make certain kinds of political and ethical choices, and to exercise certain analytical focuses in targeting on the catastrophic and the monstrous, the scandalous, the traumatic, that are often hidden and concealed in the deodorized and manicured discourses of the mainstream. That's what it means to be a leftist. So let's just be clear about it.

I believe philosophy must go to school with the poets; it's not either/or, it's not over or against.

Some people don't want to be morally consistent. They just want to be tied to their one issue.