Retirement in another country is your body is too racked with pain and your hands are too arthritic from the life in the rice patty fields, so you can't work anymore.

No child asks to get born, so when they are here, they should be shielded from any possible horror.

I'm not a very good writer. I'm working at it.

Songs sung under duress are often very powerful.

When people make my country look bad, I can't stand it.

I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.

For me, jazz will always be the soundtrack of the civil rights movement.