What we do too much of is, we talk about each other, we talk at each other, or we talk past each other. I have found that talking with each other is much more effective.

When you make friends with me, you have a friend for life.

In most of my encounters with Klan members, we would discuss reasons for why they were members in the first place.

Music is indeed the universal language and unites people.

If you don't keep hatred in check it will breed destruction.

I respect someone's right to air their views whether they are wrong or right.

You cannot hate the hate out of a person. You cannot beat the hate out of a person. But you can love it out of a person.

When was 'again?' Was it back when I was drinking from a separate water fountain? Was it when I couldn't eat in that restaurant over there?... 'Make America Great Again' - before I had equality?

I've been playing music professionally, full time since 1980 when I graduated college at the age of 22.

You don't change the system without changing the people behind the system.

I had to keep myself in check. Like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa.' I'd never sat in a room, five feet away from a Klansman putting on his damn robe. That's what freaked me out a little bit. But I wanted to see a Klansman.

Everybody likes music. And rock 'n' roll - that was the music that brought white youth and black youth together for the first time in American music history.

Venues had segregated seating - but when Chuck Berry fused together blues, boogie-woogie and country music, it caused people not to be able to sit still. They bounced up out of their seats, knocking over ropes, dancing together.

There's no more denying it, or saying we live in a post-racist society. All you have to do is turn on the TV and see all these hate crimes.

He spoke nine languages. You know some people can just pick up an instrument and play. My father was like that with languages.

It doesn't sound rational for a Klansman to sit down to dinner with a black man. What you're overlooking is, to be racist is to be irrational. So, they are already irrational, and irrational people do irrational things. That's why a Klansman will sit down with me.

I don't have any brothers and sisters, so I always relied on my parents to guide me or answer questions.

I'm always thinking 'how can I blend something?' whether it's musical instruments, voices, or the people around me.

In my band, I'm the band leader. As a band leader, our job is to bring harmony to the voices we have on stage.

Rock 'n' roll was uniting black kids and white kids, and rock 'n' roll is not being given credit... for being just as important to the civil rights movement as the activists.

I've heard stories of pickup bands that can't follow, but here's the thing: If you want to play with Chuck Berry, you listen to his greatest hits and learn the format of the songs, but don't try to play it note-for-note.

I have been attacked and mistreated for my skin colour since I was a child.

I met a white man once, who claimed that every black man has a gene which makes him violent. To which, I said I had never been violent and that he was wrong.

Hate cultures are not a thing of the past. They're a continuing problem and one cannot blame presidencies for this. Racism in the U.S. began way back, before the time of Abraham Lincoln.

If you were to talk to somebody from Georgia you would understand what he's saying, he wouldn't sound like your next-door neighbor in Montana, but other than that it's the same language, just with a few little different nuances. That's just like country and blues, or blues and rock 'n' roll. They're the same music with different accents.

I came into music kind of late in life - until I was 17 I wanted to be a spy, wanted to be James Bond, so I had to learn rather quickly and practice longer than most people did to play catch up.

Racism is a cancer. Black people have been dealing with this ever since we landed on these shores in shackles and chains. If we've been doing it for that long, those of us who are impatient need to be a little more patient and keep on addressing those things, not ignoring it. White people need to do the same thing. Don't turn a blind eye to it.

Most artists try to avoid cliches, but it's pretty hard to avoid them if you yourself end up being one.

I have gone from one relationship to a marriage and stepchildren.

If Paul McCartney tells me that so-and-so song is his favorite song, what do I care? What do I care what anybody else says?

Reject what you don't want. Get rid of dead wood.

When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.

You don't have to be a good singer any more if you can rap well.

Late 20th century music was a really important thing. It changed the world, and I'm part of that, and now I'm part of the museum that celebrates that.

I've got a sense of humor. I'm a funny guy.

Nixon was the beginning of people not trusting politics.

When you're playing in front of people, everything is external. It's all going from you out to an audience. When you're in a studio, it's very internalised, it's going from the air through you into this meticulously crafted, layered piece of work.

I've always been a guy who likes to stretch my limits - to find out if I have any, really.

I have to say I have never been comfortable with somebody else telling me what to do - in any way.

I'm just about the best singer I know, and it's time for everybody to say that. I have total facility with my voice. And for some weird reason, critics don't talk about it.

I love antique architecture, so if I have any indulgences, I have owned and renovated and reconstructed a lot of old houses.

Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.

This illness made it impossible for me to give my best effort to our audience, but now that it's been identified, I'm looking forward to a complete, quick recovery and to get back out there with John as soon as possible.

I returned to upstate NY where I just laid in bed for days with a fever that just wouldn't go away. After more of this, I grew increasingly sure that this was not simply the flu!

To write a good song, an artist has to drawn from reality. There has to be some spark from realism that communicates a real feeling to someone else. You have to be real. Or you have to be a really good storyteller.

If you work hard and you're good, you can build something for yourself.

Art is a continuum.

I always say the same thing - believe in what you do, do it, and don't veer away from the truth of it.

The late 20th century had just enough communication abilities to allow superstar-ness and communality to happen. It was a musical renaissance that rivals the visual one that happened in the 1400s.

The whole American pop culture started in Philadelphia with 'American Bandstand' and the music that came out of that city.