A lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.

My mother always told me, even if a song has been done a thousand times, you can still bring something of your own to it. I'd like to think I did that.

Long as I was riding in a big Cadillac and dressed nice and had plenty of food, that's all I cared about.

The two things you can't fake are good food and good music

All the things I used to like - cookies, ice cream, gumbo - I don't like anymore.

What happens is, when I perform, I'm somewhere else. I go back in time and get in touch with who I really am. I forget my troubles, my worries.

At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song.

I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.

When I sing for myself, I probably sing for anyone who has any kind of hurt, any kind of bad feelings, good feelings, ups and downs, highs and lows, that kind of thing.

I want a Sunday kind of love A love to last past Saturday night And I’d like to know it’s more than love at first sight

You can't fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the need, that's got nothing to do with it. It's how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them.

Human mind is the only real hope for the future of humanity! Have faith in human mind which is the only instrument who can protect you in this savage universe!

You might pass by those who're stuck in the neck bottle while you are swiming in your whiskey, be kind !

Jack and Jill slept, wrapped in each other's arms, untroubled by any dream in their cocoon of freshly discovered wrinkly passion.

I am isolated. I sit in a glass ball, I see people through a glass wall. I scream, but they do not hear me.- Ellen West

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

There is no sound more powerful than the marching feet of a determined people.

The press may hate me, and I know my battles with them are not over, but that doesn't matter.

You don't have to be in "Who's Who" to know what's what.

Wars are never fought for one reason," he said. "They are fought for dozens of reasons, in a muddle.

Cooking for people is an enormously significant expression of generosity and soulfulness.