Gil Scott-Heron Quotes & Sayings

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“I have a novel that I can write. It's about three soldiers from Somalia. Some babies have been disappearing up on 144th Street, and I speculate later on what happened to them and how they might have been got back. These guys are dead, all three, and they have a chance in the afterlife to do something they should have done when they were alive.”

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

“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.”