I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be

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

That is why we fly from the inner void, since God might steal into it. It is not the pursuit of pleasure and the aversion for effort which causes sin, but fear of God. We know that we cannot see him face to face without dying, and we do not want to die.

My people have very subtle slang, inflections and ways of saying things that has little to do with words. If you're from the same place, you'll feel the jargon and know exactly what's happening. Same with any neighborhood cat. What he sees and hears and feels and lives makes him what he is. That's what blues is.

I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be

You can't be different if you look at it. Being gifted is different. I had that in my piano playing. I'm very thankful for that. I'm very aware of that. The style and what I fed is just me. I never worked at it. It just happened.

It's a good time for black people to be alive.