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When I was studying... there weren't any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist.
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I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I've dreamed.
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That's a very high goal to have, study eight hours a day to be a concert pianist.
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Music is an art and art has its own rules. And one of them is that you must pay more attention to it than anything else in the world, if you are going to be true to yourself. And if you don't do it - and you are an artist - it punishes you.
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It's logical that people from bad times will reflect their feelings in their communication. Music is part of the communication. If you lived it, you can do it.
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What is love but a prelude to sorrow...with heartache ahead for your goal.
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Music is a gift and a burden I've had since I can remember who I was.
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Jazz is not just music, it's a way of life, it's a way of being, a way of thinking.
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It's time to take a look at my failures and stop calling them successes. Now I can start working at something that can use me best.
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Music is one of the ways by which you can know everything which is going on in the world. You can feel... through music... Whew... you can feel the vibrations of everybody in the world at any given moment.
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This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.
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To be young, gifted and black!
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You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.
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I know I'm different, but I don't think about it.
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I would like you to know, I am a doctor of music.
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Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.
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It's a good time for black people to be alive.
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I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever.
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This may be a dream, but I'll say it anyway: I was supposed to be married last year, and I bought a gown. When I meet Nelson Mandela, I shall put on this gown and have the train of it removed and put aside, and kiss the ground that he walks on and then kiss his feet.
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When I choose material for an album all these songs I grew up with pour into my head.
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How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?
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I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.
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I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.
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Theory and harmony broadened my mind in music. I know what music is made of.