Curtis Mayfield

“When I was just coming up, I always wanted to be able to perform to a large crowd with a symphony.”

“Through my fans and my children, my wife, just good people, I'm coping.”

“I used to love to sit and listen to the old people talk about yesterday. There's a lot of good information there.”

“We weren't the Temptations, but when we came out onstage, the people always gave us a special respect because our songs were of an inspirational quality.”

“Being a young black man, observing and sensing the need for race equality and women's rights, I wrote about what was important to me.”

“With a spinal cord injury, which most people don't really know about... there are many, many complications that actually lead you through your life, and sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down.”

“I was a very observant child. Almost anything could become a song to me.”

“My teacher told me I'd never amount to anything. I left high school at 15, after one year. But my real teachers were all the people around me. And I was a good listener.”

“I didn't have to leave my neighborhood to be surrounded by the things that 'Super Fly' is about. It was easier than most scripts because it was about an environment that I knew.”

“I don't like to appoint myself to nothing, knowing I'm no better than anybody else. But it always makes me feel good to know I try to do the best I can, and those who might observe say, 'Hey, I can take a little something from that person.'”

“I didn't put Priest down. He was just trying to get out. His deeds weren't noble ones, but he was making money, and he had intelligence. And he did survive. I mean, all this was reality.”

“My art and my creativities were totally something that was of my own heart and mind. I could never let anybody dictate to me what I should write and how I would write it.”

“If there's hell below, we're all gonna go.”

“Reading the script, I started feeling very deeply bad for Freddie. Between his friends, his partners, and his woman, he was catching a hard time. 'Freddie's Dead' came to me immediately.”

“I think my grandmother was one of my biggest influences.”

“Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.”

“I was writing songs from when I was 12. My songs always came from questions that I need answers for.”

“How many 54-year-old quadriplegics are putting albums out? You just have to deal with what you got, try to sustain yourself as best you can, and look to the things that you can do.”

“To talk about the '60s almost brings tears to my eyes. What we did. What we all did. We changed the world.”

“Coming up in Chicago, we heard a lot of blues.”