Sun Ra

“And then when I went to Chicago, that's when I had these outer space experiences and went to the other planets.”

“All these other nations seem to appreciate what I'm doing and they want me to play the furthest out things.”

“Today's symphonic music is sponsored by the upper structures of society.”

“I am a musician, but I'm another type of musician.”

“Not too many people in America know about me, but all of Europe knows about me.”

“A prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own people.”

“First of all I express sincerity. There's also that sense of humor, by which people sometimes learn to laugh about themselves. I mean, the situation is so serious that the people could go crazy because of it. They need to smile and realize how ridiculous everything is. A race without a sense of humor is in bad shape. A race needs clowns. In earlier days people knew that. Kings always had a court jester around. In that way he was always reminded how ridiculous things are. I believe that nations too should have jesters, in the congress, near the president, everywhere.....You could call me the jester of the Creator. The whole world, all the disease and misery, it's all ridiculous.”

“But recently I began to feel that maybe I wouldn't be able to do what I want to do and need to do with American musicians, who are imprisoned behind these bars; music's got these bars and measures you know.”

“Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power.”

“I see people as they really are from a pure point of view.”

“It's such a tragedy that man endures in killing his brother and his own kind, putting him in jail and insane asylums, letting him lay out in the street.”

“The world is in such a bad condition that if they don't find what you call a redeemer, every man, woman and child on this planet will be eliminated.”

“What I'm dealing with is so vast and great that it can't be called the truth. It's above the truth.”

“People have set that up as a standard, not to recognize a prophet in his own country.”

“A world is in danger, this planet is in great danger!”

“I'm not a minister, I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a politician, I'm in another category.”

“I'm playing dark history. It's beyond black. I'm dealing with the dark things of the cosmos.”

“Music is a language, you see, a universal language.”

“I use music as a medium to talk to people.”