I was the fifth child in a family of six, five boys and one girl. Bless that poor girl. We were very poor; it was the 30s. We survived off of the food and the little work that my father… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
When people get up on the stage and say, "I've got AIDS," or "I'm in recovery," gosh, it's hard for them. It's like that… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
I need to be in touch with the people. You've got to look in their eyes, and you've got to feel what they feel. You've got to engage people. All that we do and believe in is engaging people to touch, to heal, to look at each other's eyes, to feel with each other, to cry with each other, to… — Cecil Williams Copy Share
The music certainly plays a major role. You can be free enough to comfort each other, to touch each other, to embrace each other, to engage each other, to not be afraid of each other. The music certainly has that very strong element. Go back to folk songs, gospel, jazz, and spirituals. See, all of that came out of tremendous… — Cecil Williams Copy Share
Any racism or barriers that may be put up, you get a tremendous sense of resistance. The more you push me, the greater I… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
I don't go and study other folks. I come from where I came from, as a kid, in the little black church I grew… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
When the musician starts improvising, he never can go back to what he did last Sunday. That's what's frightening to a lot of people… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
I'm not interested in being an intellectual or in being traditional, conventional. I'm not interested in having great wisdom. I'm not interested in those… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
There's great poetry in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And I'm not interested in trying to prove whether this paragraph is as… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
I have excessive energy, tremendous energy. I have a sense of people. I can feel them, pretty much so, in a short time. I'm… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
Death is a reality, but life is a reality also. You got to live at this time in your life like you've never lived… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
I'm a folk preacher. A folk therapist. A folk musician. I come from authentically that which is of my experience. Therefore, the music is… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
If you got the truth, you put it out there, and everybody says, "Oh, my God. That's me." And then they improvise also. They… — Cecil Williams Copy Share Image
