I like Colin Powell, I like his West Indian background, I like his intellect, I like a lot of things that he does and his style. What is at fault here is a policy that's taking this country to hell.

In my earliest of years, my mother was a huge force in my life. She was for all intents and purposes, a single parent. My father had abandoned us. He was an alcoholic and a physical abuser. My mother lived through that tyranny and made her living as a domestic worker. She was uneducated but she brought high principles and decent values into our existence, and she set lofty goals for herself and for her children. We were forever inspired by her strength and by her resistance to racism and to fascism.

In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children.

If I've impacted on one heart, one mind, one soul, and brought to that individual a greater truth than that individual came into a relationship with me having, then I would say that I have been successful.

Since I have escaped the harshness of the economic bounds of poverty, I have stayed very connected to it spiritually. I reside and live and go and socialize and exist among those who suffer daily from the relationship that they have to poverty, Black men and women who are incarcerated. Actually, all people who are incarcerated, not just Black.

Each and every one of you has the power, the will and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live in

When I went to Japan I sang in Japanese; when I went to Greece I sang in Greek. When I went to Spain, I sang in Spanish. I couldn't speak it very well, but I sang, I was beautiful in singing it. These things just constantly attracted people to the uniqueness of who I was and the way in which I performed.