"Rock n' Roll came from the slaves singing gospel in the fields. Their lives were hell and they used music to lift out of it, to take them away. That's what rock n' roll should do - take you to a better place"

"Music is my religion"

"There can be no tyrants where there are no slaves"

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away"

"I've always been into melodies. That's what I love about music – a good melody that gives you goosebumps"

"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it"

"We worked very hard to make the lyrics suit the music. I can't, like Elton John, for example, compose by lyrics. Elton has a great talent for that. Whatever you give him, including your questions, he composes in half an hour and makes a great song out of it"

"Music is the shorthand of emotion"

"A nation creates music - the composer only arranges it"

"Music in the soul can be heard by the universe"

"I call architecture frozen music"