Quotes from Gil Scott-Heron

Well, I grew up on the blues, man!

I don't mind being criticized. I enjoy being criticized personally, not by rumor.

As for money - when I have it, it's great. When I don't, I go get some. I've been a dishwasher, a gardener, a cleaner.

The revolution will not be televised.

Music has the power to make me feel good like nothing else does. It gives me some peace for a while. Takes me back to who I really am.

I was a better writer when I was teaching. I was constantly going over the basics and constantly reminding myself, as I reminded my students, what made a good story, a good poem.

Womenfolk raised me and I was full-grown before I knew I came from a broken home

Colour is not the issue in America; class is.

I don't think people in power have the potential to do anything like that to me. I feel as though as long as our music is available, folks are going to hear it.

The revolution that takes place in your head, nobody will ever see that.

If we meet somebody who has never made a mistake, lets help them start a religion. Until then, were just going to meet other humans and help to make each other better.

Every once in a while, you live long enough to get the respect that people didn't want to give while you were trying to become a senior citizen.

Every show that sells out is like a hero's welcome for me.

I found my grandmother dead. It shook me up. I got up to make her breakfast, and I knew it was strange that she wasn't stirring. I went in to wake her, and she was laying in rigor mortis, and I'm done. I called next door, and the kid picked up the phone, and I was so wild, he dropped it.

I was one of the first three black students to go to an all-white school in Tennessee.

I cannot afford to watch Fox News.

Everything that's bad for you catches on too quickly in America, because that's the easiest thing to get people to invest in, the pursuits that are easy and destructive, the ones that bring out the least positive aspects of people.

I've always had questions about what it meant to be a protester, to be in the minority. Are the people who are trying to find peace, who are trying to have the Constitution apply to everybody, are they really the radicals? We're not protesting from the outside. We're inside.

I thought that some of my best records was when there wasn't a lot of work being done on it, like 'Winter in America' and 'Secrets' and when there weren't a whole lot of people in the studios.

You know what has made me the happiest I've ever been? Seeing my son and daughter graduate from college. More than wanting them to be educated, I wanted them to be nice people. To see that they have become both is just a wonderful thing.

If you aren't having no fun, die, because you're running a worthless program, far as I'm concerned.

My songs were always about the tone of voice rather than the words.

A lot of folks are so busy trying to get their groceries together that they don't have time to do research. I have time. Maybe that's the main difference.

I am honestly not sure how capable I am of love. And I'm not sure why.