"War takes people's lives and destroys property, but it does not resolve the world's problems. If anything is achieved through war, it is to plant the seeds for the next violent conflict as the vanquished and their children will usually not accept the outcome."

“I always try to write a song, I never just want to write a record. Originally I was not writing songs for myself. ....And I can say this, most of the people who have recorded my songs are songwriters themselves. ... Even if I don't release it myself, somebody else might hear it and want to record it. When you write a song, it gives it that potential. When you write a song, a song has longevity. ... So I wanted to sing inspirational music, and that's exactly how I approached it-only the words have been changed to declare my relationship with God. Songwriting is my gift from God.”

“This is beautiful indeed; the colored people have given this to the head of the government, and that government once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this book.”

“Remember also that it is not knowledge but the yearning for knowledge that makes for a complete, accomplished man. Such a man does not stand still but perseveres in the face of adversity, nor does he remain untouched by the pain cause by absence. On the contrary, he recognizes himself in each cry, uttered or repressed, in the smallest rift, in the most pressing need.”

“But live you get the chance every night to rework it and change it and hone it. But then you get the false, weird oddness of being able to look at it and say: "Well that's weird, because last night they laughed at that and yet they didn't tonight. So what did I do? Nothing was different." You have that strange thing of being able to tell within five minutes what an audience is like. Very quickly an audience gets a personality and you start to think: "What is it about you all; you all hate it, don't you?" Then you come out and have friends in and they say: "It was brilliant!"”

“Life is about challenges and how we face up to them and the attitude we take into every day life so hopefully we'll be able to motivate people to do more with their life.”

“Technology to wipe out truth is now available. Not everybody can afford it but it's available. When the cost comes down, look out!”

“Whenever the government is involved, there is an element of coercion.”

“Interestingly, what the bourgeois women's groups in India wanted to do in the nationalist period is to have the peasant women essentially follow them... They would be the leaders and the peasant women would be the masses.”

Source : "'Exiles From the Future': An Interview with Vijay Prashad". Interview with Andrew Stewart, www.counterpunch.org. August 17, 2016.