Top 58 Gil Scott-Heron Quotes
#1. I would say if you are familiar with our history and the history of our art and literature that you see a clear cut pattern of people wanting to contribute, not only artistically, but in some practical purpose, for the benefits of the community.
Gil Scott-Heron
#2. Every show that sells out is like a hero's welcome for me.
Gil Scott-Heron
#3. I don't suspect that in many instances the artists who are dedicated in that fashion to the progress of that community are as well protected by the community as might be necessary.
Gil Scott-Heron
#4. I am honestly not sure how capable I am of love. And I'm not sure why.
Gil Scott-Heron
#5. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#6. I try not to take people who haven't really thought out what they're doing too seriously. I try not to let them get in the way of what I feel I need to do.
Gil Scott-Heron
#7. You should be able to do anything you can afford as an adult.
Gil Scott-Heron
#8. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#10. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#11. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#14. If you're supposed to be doing something, the spirits will come and help you. They have helped me out with lines I shouldn't have known, chords I shouldn't have known. Every once in a while I get lines from somewhere, and I think, I better write this down.
Gil Scott-Heron
#16. If you aren't having no fun, die, because you're running a worthless program, far as I'm concerned.
Gil Scott-Heron
#17. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#18. Words are important for the mind, but the notes are for the soul.
Gil Scott-Heron
#19. I don't mind being criticized. I enjoy being criticized personally, not by rumor.
Gil Scott-Heron
#20. I find it not just strange but almost ridiculous that people could take a song like the one I was doing and interpret it is corroding anything. Folks have the feeling that oftentimes if you don't talk about something it will go away.
Gil Scott-Heron
#21. Womenfolk raised me, and I was full-grown before I knew I came from a broken home.
Gil Scott-Heron
#22. Turn around, turn around, turn around
And you may come full circle
And be new here again
Gil Scott-Heron
#23. I don't see any independent position that I'm in; it's rather inter-dependent.
Gil Scott-Heron
#24. My songs were always about the tone of voice rather than the words.
Gil Scott-Heron
#25. You will not be able to stay home, brother./You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out./You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,/Skip out for beer during commercials,/Because the revolution will not be televised.
Gil Scott-Heron
#26. I am a black man dedicated to expression; expression of the joy and pride of blackness. I consider myself neither poet, composer, or musician. These are merely tools used by sensitive men to carve out a piece of beauty or truth that they hope may lead to peace and salvation.
Gil Scott-Heron
#27. Man is a complex being: he makes deserts bloom - and lakes die.
Gil Scott-Heron
#29. A good poet feels what his community feels.
Like if you stub your toe, the rest of your body hurts.
Gil Scott-Heron
#30. Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.
Gil Scott-Heron
#31. It may be crazy, but I'm the closest thing I have to a voice of reason.
Gil Scott-Heron
#33. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#34. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#35. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#36. Oftentimes, the way it seems to be is that our artists in particular point themselves out as spokesmen for a certain constituency in a community, and thereby place themselves in that vulnerable position.
Gil Scott-Heron
#37. The revolution that takes place in your head, nobody will ever see that.
Gil Scott-Heron
#38. I tour more than I need to, more than is good for you. But it's my favorite part of music. I much prefer it to studio work.
Gil Scott-Heron
#40. America .. the international Jekyll and Hyde ... the land of a thousand disguises, sneaks up on you but rarely surprises
Gil Scott-Heron
#41. Schedule? I have no schedule. There is no hurry. I work when I want to.
Gil Scott-Heron
#42. I learnt early on that your audience take the songs in the way they want to rather than the way you might want them too.
Gil Scott-Heron
#43. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#45. The revolution will be no re-run brothers,
The revolution will be live.
Gil Scott-Heron
#46. If someone comes to you and asks for help, and you can help them, you're supposed to help them. Why wouldn't you? You have been put in the position somehow to be able to help this person.
Gil Scott-Heron
#47. The way you get to know yourself is by the expressions on other people's faces, because that's the only thing that you can see, unless you carry a mirror about.
Gil Scott-Heron
#48. I think that the more people who speak out, and say things and take stands on positions that will better our community, the better off each and every other individual artist or otherwise, will be.
Gil Scott-Heron
#49. Your life has to consist of more than 'Black people should unite.' You hope they do, but not twenty-four hours a day.
Gil Scott-Heron
#50. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#51. You see, revolution sounds like something that happens, like turning on the light switch, but actually it's moving a large obstacle, and a lot of folks' efforts to push it in one direction or the other have to combine.
Gil Scott-Heron
#53. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#54. 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.
Gil Scott-Heron
#55. You can have a poem like "B-Movie" and sum up thirty conversations that people have had on the subject, but I wrote it down, and other people didn't.
Gil Scott-Heron
#56. I was one of the first three black students to go to an all-white school in Tennessee.
Gil Scott-Heron
#58. The truth is that in this country you here you're more likely to be harassed, hurt, or killed if you're a minister speaking about progress for Black people than if you are a sure enough revolutionary.
Gil Scott-Heron
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