I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

Desegregation is a joke.

The worst thing about that kind of prejudice... is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough.

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

I think if I were over there in America, protest music would be more important. But I'm not going.

I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.

I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I've dreamed.