Wall Street is stronger than ever.

So more and more black folk tend to be well-adjusted to [Barack] Obama's presidency, but does that mean they're well-adjusted to injustice? Because we don't hear our president talking about the new Jim Crow, the prison-industrial complex.

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.

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

I do believe that not just the churches but strong communities, strong trade unions, strong families can make a difference in terms of producing persons much more virtuous than what one usually finds in a gangster culture.

The women can always choose the patriarchal models, and you end up with a Margaret Thatcher.

The condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak - that gives it an existential emphasis.