You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.

I have heard more than once, 'Shut up and sing!' and I get it now.

We need to have faith in the people who are giving this movement direction to be smart enough to stay one step ahead of what's coming up next.

That's all nonviolence is - organized love.

Back then I was still listening to rhythm and blues, and my aunt took me to see a Pete Seeger concert. And it gelled. He made all the sense in the world to me. I got addicted to his albums, and then Belafonte and Odetta - they were the people who seemed to fuse things that were important to me into music. I think Pete the most because he did what he did to the point where he took those enormous risks and then paid for them.

When I was 16, the guest speaker was King. And I was completely overwhelmed because I had been studying nonviolence, talking about it, reading about it, but here it was happening, here it was people boycotting the buses and people on the streets and taking risks, which I think was the key.

My father was a physicist and also an activist. My first public protest was with my dad at Stanford. I came by all that honestly.