I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft.

I'm not a pacifist at all; I think there is a notion of "just war" that can be persuasively argued. I think in the face of Nazis, in the face of apartheid, that I would have joined those armies. But that's the last, last resort.

I'm a bluesman, which means that I put an emphasis on the minor keys.

It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.

I loathe nationalism. It is a form of tribalism--the idolatry of the 20th century.

The most important assets we have are our bodies and our energy which can be put to good use as resources in political activism for poor and working people.

I'm a Christian, but I'm not a puritan. I believe in pleasure and orgiastic pleasure has its place, intellectual pleasure has its place, social pleasure has its place, televisual pleasure has its place [in life].