Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love.
Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.
Time is long but life is short.
Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn't mean he lacks vision.
Sometimes, I feel I am really blessed to be blind because I probably would not last a minute if I were able to see things.
If you don't ask, you don't get.
I am what I am. I love me! And I don't mean that egotistically - I love that God has allowed me to take whatever it was that I had and to make something out of it.
Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of the Gods. So let us celebrate the struggle!
You can't base your life on other people's expectations.
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
Eyes lie if you ever look into them for the character of the person.
Sometimes I wish I could drive a car, but I'm gonna drive a car one day, so I don't worry about that.
What I'm not confused about is the world needing much more love, no hate, no prejudice, no bigotry and more unity, peace and understanding. Period.
God gave me life to continue to do things that I would never have done.
Ya gots to work with what you gots to work with.
I want to take all the pain that I feel and celebrate and turn it around.
No one has been a greater advocate for the power of love in this world than I; both in my life and in my music.
Minds ripen at very different ages.
Let us come together before we're annihilated.
Clearly, love is love, between a man and a woman, a woman and a man, a woman and a woman and a man and a man.
I think honestly, some people who think they're gay, they're confused.
I can't say that I'm always writing in my head but I do spend a lot of time in my head writing or coming up with ideas. And what I do usually is write the music and melody and then, you know, maybe the basic idea. But when I feel that I don't have a song or just say, God, please give me another song. And I just am quiet and it happens.
I am not a normal man.
For the most part, I feel really comfortable with what I've given to the people. I want to give it to them again.
I do believe in women. I really do.
When I was a child, kids used to make fun of me because I was blind. But I just became more curious, 'How can I climb this tree and get an apple for this girl?' That's what mattered to me.
I am all for stem cell research.
You know, I always when people ask me, like, what is my most favorite song, I quote Duke Ellington, when they would ask him, what's his favorite composition? And I say, I haven't written it yet. Because, you know, there are different songs for different occasions.
Of course I read Braille, yes.
Some people have a desire to be with the same sex. But that's them.
I've had some incredibly triumphal things happen in my life.
My father really was not the dominant person who raised the family, it was my mother who raised the family.
I guess people expect or figure me to be a lot of different things.
I used to say that if something happened to my mother, I wanted to die with her. That's because I loved her so much. I want to live so I can carry out the essence of what she has shown me: kindness and goodness.
Blind don't mean you can't, you know, listen.
People can misconstrue closeness for love.
I might sing a gospel song in Arabic or do something in Hebrew. I want to mix it up and do it differently than one might imagine.
Do you know, it's funny, but I never thought of being blind as a disadvantage, and I never thought of being black as a disadvantage.
First of all, I'm no better than the next person.
I listen a lot to rap, and I'm inspired to take it, to use it in another way, to get the message across.
I know there are thousands of images of me.
I'm still experimenting.
This is like one thing that I've tried to do, and I think successfully, that when you realize that nothing really belongs to you, you begin to appreciate having an understanding of just where your head is at, and you feel so much better.
My mother had a rule, obviously, that I couldn't go across the street by myself, but I had to find a way of doing it.
The right to bear arms? What about the right to live?
I might do something in Arabic. I might do something in Hebrew.
You know, I have seven children, so I guess I know some things about life.
I remember the beginnings of the Kurzweil reading machine. I was one of the first to meet Ray Kurzweil and purchase the reading machine in Boston. To think that the machine was at least two and a half large suitcases at the time, and now you have a camera and it takes a picture and you have sound.
I'm concerned about how accessible guns are.
I am all for anything that is going to better equip a person who is physically challenged in any way, to have an opportunity to be able to do what they are able to do.
I've had threats.
