"You know how you go through a phase and you dye your hair, or something, or you might try and be really out there? My family thought it was that, so they thought, 'Oh, yeah, she’s going through her little Muslim thing, you know.'"

"One of the things I learned about myself early on was, I was never the smartest person in the room, but I had some ability to get smart people lined up together to do something."

"Eventually I came to the conclusion that actually I can choose this place. I don’t have to be wandering. I can choose this as my home."

"When people look at me, they’re like, 'Oh, well, you’re a happy person.' But I have to be happy, and I have to be strong, because I have kids growing up, you know? Even if I am in the projects, I still gotta be strong and keep a smile on my face."

"In salsa, it was a different atmosphere like I never felt before. The atmosphere is like, me moving in slow motion—I can actually see their faces, if they are smiling or not."

"‘Mr. Williams, I need to see you.’Which meant you were in trouble for something. I mean, it’s the first day of school. I didn’t do anything. Why am I in trouble? Why does he want to see me?"

"My phone rings, 6:30, 7 in the morning, people either asking me for word of the day, or some kind of inspirational word, or they talk to me about their problems. But that's just what I do right now. I'm there for people, in any way I can be."

"Sometimes when you’re young, you just deal with what you have, and that’s it. You don’t go look for something else."

"I didn’t really know what to expect. I mean, Massachusetts people aren’t the friendliest folk to start a conversation. But I figured: whatever, I’ll sing. I know I can at least sing. If people talk to me, great. And if they don’t, at least they’ll think I’m a good singer hopefully."

"When that crack came through here, did a job on the neighborhood. And it’s funny, because they announced it- like, it was in New York first, and they said that it was gonna be coming to Massachusetts. Almost like the lotus were coming and stuff."

"You had to make your choice then—if you stayed with yours, or you went with the other kind, you know? So I decided, I said: Listen. I seen enough of my side. Let me see what the other side is like."

"I got my start in comedy in prison. One of the guys, he was a rapper, and he said: 'Man, you always sayin’ something funny. You need to write this down.' And so I wrote it down."

“At my father’s 80th birthday, I said, ‘Well, dad. Here I am. I always said this wasn’t what I wanted to do, and this is what I’m doing. And thank you. I enjoy it. And know how to do it from watching you.’"

"You start, and it’s calm and cool. And then, next thing you know, it capture your inner self. And if you’re not too careful, you could get lost within the very same rhythm that you’re playing. Because it will take you. It’s like a musical journey."

"I just felt like if I was a stronger link in the chain of people around my brothers, that if they needed me support-wise, I could be there. It was basically: go to school now, so that you can take care of them later."

"They were sailors, and we just said, ‘Oh, my, aren’t they adorable?’ They must have said the same thing about us! You know, the whistles and all of that. Ignored, of course, you know. Hard to get."

"Los Robles, un grupo de latinos de tercera edad, cantando espontáneamente mientras esperan embarcar un crucero del Boston Harbor organizado por la ciudad. Para algunos, era la primera vez que salían del barrio de Mission Hill." (VIDEO)

"You give me a mic and a thousand people, and you better believe I will captivate them. I will do it. I’m not sure of a lot of things in life, but that I’m sure of."

"The first day I took the ropes out was last year at the Ripley Road cookout. It was amazing. I had a 49-year-old lady jumping rope. She had a head full of grey hair. She jumped longer than everybody."

"It was a very demanding, tough job, having to wake up at 4 in the morning.You could work up to 18 hour days, right before a holiday. But I would not have the work ethic that I have today if not for this place."