You've got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; a thermometer just reflects it.

I tend to be one who just speaks from my soul, and so what comes out sometimes is rather harsh. In that sense, I'm very much a part of the tradition of a Frederick Douglass or a Malcolm X who used hyperbolic language at times to bring attention to the state of emergency.

I'm an old Coltrane disciple just like I'm a Christian.

It's never a question of skin pigmentation. It's never a question of just culture or sexual orientation or civilization. It's what kind of human being you're going to choose to be from your mama's womb to the tomb and what kind of legacy will you leave.

Love and trust and justice, concern for the poor, that's being pushed to the margins, and you can see it.

Poor people and working people have not been the focus of the Obama administration. That for me is not just a disappointment but a kind of betrayal.