Someone had to change the world. And obviously I was the one for the job.

The longer you practice nonviolence and the meditative qualities of it that you will need, the more likely you are to do something intelligent in any situation.

During the 'ballad' years for me, the politics was latent; I was just falling in love with the ballads and my boyfriend. And there was the beauty of the songs.

If you don't have music, you have silence. There is power in both.

Social change really cannot happen unless people are willing to take a risk, and they were. And I was so moved by that, and of course by the way that he spoke, that made a huge dent in my belief system and my spirit.

Sometimes I think that it is enough to say that if we don't sit down and shut up once in a while we'll lose our minds even earlier than we had expected. Noise is an imposition on sanity, and we live in very noisy times.

There are good guys, and there are congressional people who are good guys, and I certainly vote in those elections. You know, my fondest dream would be if Obama, when he got out of office, decided he was going to go back and organize on the streets. He'd be the only person I could imagine who could really create a movement similar to what King did, and God knows we need that now.