My teacher told me I’d never amount to anything. I left high school at 15, after one year. But my real teachers were all the people around me. And I was a good listener. — Curtis Mayfield

Remember your dream is your only scheme, so keep on pushing. — Curtis Mayfield

The hunt is on and brother you’re the prey. — Curtis Mayfield

His hustle was wrong, his mind was his own, but the man lived alone, oh, Superfly. — Curtis Mayfield

I was a very observant child. Almost anything could become a song to me. — Curtis Mayfield

When I was just coming up, I always wanted to be able to perform to a large crowd with a symphony. — Curtis Mayfield

To talk about the ’60s almost brings tears to my eyes. What we did. What we all did. We changed the world. — Curtis Mayfield

My fights and arguments, even with God, went down on paper. — Curtis Mayfield

I was writing songs from when I was 12. My songs always came from questions that I need answers for. — Curtis Mayfield

Educated fools; from uneducated schools. — Curtis Mayfield

This accident, or incident, happened in the most secure place I could have felt I was in: Walking onstage with my guitar, you know? — Curtis Mayfield

Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love… if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it. — Curtis Mayfield

We weren’t the Temptations, but when we came out onstage, the people always gave us a special respect because our songs were of an inspirational quality. — Curtis Mayfield

How many 54–year–old quadriplegics are putting albums out? You just have to deal with what you got, try to sustain yourself as best you can, and look to the things that you can do. — Curtis Mayfield

Our purpose is to educate as well as to entertain. — Curtis Mayfield

Maybe the words that I say is just another way to pray. — Curtis Mayfield

With a spinal cord injury, which most people don’t really know about… there are many, many complications that actually lead you through your life, and sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. — Curtis Mayfield

Don’t worry, if there is a hell below, we’re all going to go. — Curtis Mayfield

Painless preaching is as good a term as any for what we do. — Curtis Mayfield

As a kid, sometimes you have nobody to turn to. I could always go back to some of the sermons and talk to myself in a righteous manner and put that in a song. — Curtis Mayfield

Reading the script, I started feeling very deeply bad for Freddie. Between his friends, his partners, and his woman, he was catching a hard time. ‘Freddie’s Dead’ came to me immediately. — Curtis Mayfield

Being a young black man, observing and sensing the need for race equality and women’s rights, I wrote about what was important to me. — Curtis Mayfield

I think my grandmother was one of my biggest influences. — Curtis Mayfield

Coming up in Chicago, we heard a lot of blues. — Curtis Mayfield

If there’s hell below, we’re all gonna go. — Curtis Mayfield

Through my fans and my children, my wife, just good people, I’m coping. — Curtis Mayfield

I didn’t have to leave my neighborhood to be surrounded by the things that ‘Super Fly’ is about. It was easier than most scripts because it was about an environment that I knew. — Curtis Mayfield

My art and my creativities were totally something that was of my own heart and mind. I could never let anybody dictate to me what I should write and how I would write it. — Curtis Mayfield