"If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that's what it's all about."

"My job in this life is to give people spiritual ecstasy through music. In my concerts people cry, laugh, dance. If they climaxed spiritually, I did my job. I did it decently and honestly."

"I'm laughing because I know the secret of life. And the secret of life is that I have validated my existence. I know that I am worth more than my house, my bank account, or any physical thing."

"Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins."

"Some songs are just like tattoos for your brain... you hear them and they're affixed to you."

"When a baby comes you can smell two things: the smell of flesh, which smells like chicken soup, and the smell of lilies, the flower of another garden, the spiritual garden."

"Just as we have two eyes and two feet, duality is part of life."

"The Devil is like a strainer that separates the mud from the gold."

"The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace."

"First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that."