Quotes

I would say I've always lived creativity, but now I - I do it with an intention that's got a completely different power.

Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech always sends me down some path, some trajectory of some creative idea.

I've noticed that the more I open up, the more I learn.

I do get around. Geographically, that is.

In some ways, in the U.S. we don't know how to be. I think in a lot of ways America is about liberation and about change and progressive human relations. And because of that, I feel like that we're confused about who we're supposed to be and what it is that's supposed to satisfy us and make us feel fulfilled.

I sang in a reggae band. And then there was a soul band where I sang back-up vocals and some lead. And I was also in a women's a capella group. And I was in the gospel choir at school. Actually, I've always been in choirs. Or some kind of group. Just because I love singing so much. But I truthfully never thought of it as a career.

For most Americans, my Chinese music feels like a novelty, and it's not what it is for me.

I have a general sense of mission, and I intuitively know when something is influencing that mission. I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Doors keep opening. In the end, it's the best use of my skills. I've finally consented to the idea that I'm an artist.

I believe in the old, because it shows us where we come from - where our souls have risen from. And I believe in the new, because it gives us the opportunity to create who we are becoming.

I believe in music because it has the power of change.

You have to try things you're really afraid of, even if you pee yourself a little bit.

One of my favorite albums in the world is Bruce Springsteen's 'Nebraska.' Each song has this very distinct character who has something profound to say.

I've moved around so much my whole life, and I've gotten so used to being the Other in situations - the foreigner, the outsider. The first time I've ever felt like there was no separation between me and the other elements was in music.

I do see music as complete refuge. It's a universal home, complete common ground between everyone; it comes from a place that has no nation and no boundaries around it.

In some ways, my most comfortable feeling has been that of being an outsider coming in, but over the years I've tired of that and I'm ready to feel at home. That's what music gives me: a feeling of absolute home.

I had no intention of becoming a performer, and yet under miraculous circumstances I was brought into the music industry fold. If divine powers hadn't intervened, I'd still be living in China working in some area of Sino-American comparative law.

China was the first time I truly felt like an outsider. I fell in love with the process of trying to become intimate with the culture.

I'm no ethnomusicologist. There is a connection between the five-note scale used both in traditional Chinese music and the blues, but I don't really understand it. All I know is, whenever I play with Chinese musicians, we seem to belong to the same musical gene pool.

It takes a few to make war, but it takes a village and a nation to build peace.

Many Ethiopians see yesterday. I see tomorrow.

I don't have any clue about the criteria, how the Nobel committee selects an individual for the prize.

I have done so many great things compared to many leaders. But I didn't do 1 per cent of what I am dreaming.

Well, peace is a very expensive commodity in my country, as well as in my region.

I was a young soldier when war broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Health is a worldwide public good. It requires global action guided by a sense of global solidarity.