Gil Scott-Heron Quotes

But why, why, why can't people just say what they mean?

I often think people don't know what to think of me, and in fact this is precisely the objective of many of my creations. Even back in the days with Lady Starlight, my original partner, we aimed to bemuse. This feeling of bemusement - it's neither good nor bad. It just is. Whether critics realize it or not, they've been in a very long argument since my public birth.

If ask 100 Arkansans about the phrase, 'the public option,' or 'a public option,' you'll get 100 different impressions about what that means.

One goes on with the blithe belief that who you really are is transparent to everybody. Then you realise, with some horror, that in fact it's not. So all you can do is keep muddying the waters a bit.

I still don't know quite what I'm supposed to do or be.

The reason the public loves me is that they understand everything that I do. The reason they love you is that they understand nothing of what you do.

So much has been written about me, and people don't know what's right and what's wrong. I'd rather let them stay confused.

My aim is to be as open and as incomprehensible as possible. There has to be a perfect balance between open and shut.

I'm pretty much an out-front, straightforward chick, and I get a bit confused by expectations.

People don't know where to place me, and I think that's why my audience is so big.

People recognize me from everything and as soon as I think I know where they know me from, I'm always wrong.

You walked in, laughing, tears welling confused, mingling in your throat. How can you be so many women to so many people, oh you strange girl?

The mere suggestion of fame and fortune casts a glamour all its own. It is rather alarming how quickly people will turn someone else's fiction into fact in order to support their own fictions of themselves.

You have begun to separate the dark from the dark.

It took me years to work out the difference between net and gross. In meetings I just used to say, 'Tell me if it's good or bad news.

I'm not lost, because I haven't any idea where to go that I might get lost on the way to. I'd like to get lost, because then I'd know where I was going, you see.

I feel that silence is the greatest word, ever. When you don't talk, people begin to read things into you or you become what they long for. When you don't talk, you almost become the mirror image of the other person.

You know, people are saying, they don't understand, really, what I'm doing.

People always write on my Facebook that they've seen somebody they thought was me on the subway, and I was cursing badly.

People like definite decisions, / Tidy answers, all the little ravelings / Snipped off, the lint removed, they / Hop happily among their roughs / Calling what they can't clutch insanity / Or saintliness.

Some people find clarity threatening. They like muddle, confusion, obscurity. So when somebody does no more than speak clearly it sounds threatening.

How long have you been a Wiccan?' 'A what?' 'A pagan. A witch.' 'I'm not a witch,' I said, glancing out the door. 'I'm a wizard.' Sanya frowned. 'What is the difference?' 'Wizard has a Z' He looked at me blankly. 'No one appreciates me.' I muttered.

I get a lot of people complaining about my ambiguity, often in cases which there is nothing ambigous at all. As far as I can see, people read it when they were half stoned and listening to the TV. Then they come back and say gee, it's impossible to figure out what's going on in a story.

I hear so many things about who I am supposed to be I hardly know what to believe. I am willing to tell all, but what Is it? Doubtless all these myths and legends will be straightened out eventually, but It may take years.

Wait a minute, Juanita. Make up your mind. This Snow Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?" Juanita shrugs. "What's the difference?