Anybody singing the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help.

Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.

Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say.

When you sing gospel you have a feeling there is a cure for what's wrong.

It is easy to be independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you haven't got a thing, that's the Lord's test.

Man has no nobler function than to defend the truth.

God can make you anything you want to be, but you have to put everything in his hands.

Baby, black promoters oppressed me before white promoters ever got hold of me. Don't talk skin to me.

Gospel songs are the songs of hope. When you sing gospel you have the feeling there is a cure for what's wrong, but when you are through with the blues, you've got nothing to rest on.

I sing God's music because it makes me feel free. It gives me hope. With the blues, when you finish, you still have the blues.

Without a song, each day would be a century.

One must be an inventor to read well. There is then creative reading as well as creative writing.

Refuse to react to any angry actions.

Choose the body to live in.

I am not a juicy painter.

Painting with all its technicalities, difficulties, and peculiar ends, is nothing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing.

America rests on shared values rather than shared ethnicity.

Every nation has its war party. It is not the party of democracy. It is the party of autocracy. It seeks to dominate absolutely.

I never really cared for the things of this world. It was the glow of Your Presence that filled it with beauty.

The beliefs concerning reincarnation have great ethical impact on human life and our relationship to the world.

When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it.