Black people lived right by the railroad tracks and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy and I thought: I'm gonna make a song that sounds like that.

I am the innovator. I am the originator. I am the emancipator. I am the architect of rock 'n' roll!

A-bop-bop-a-loom-op-a-lop-bop-boom.

Greed has taken the whole universe, and nobody is worried about their soul.

And I'd like to give my love to everybody, and let them know that the grass may look greener on the other side, but believe me, it's just as hard to cut.

I think God made a woman to be strong and not to be trampled under the feet of men. I've always felt this way because my mother was a very strong woman, without a husband.

A lot of people call me the architect of rock & roll. I don't call myself that, but I believe it's true.

Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.

I did what I felt, and I felt what I did, at all costs.

God would be a very selfish god if he gave all the soul to one race. ... When one sings from the heart and it reaches another heart, that's soul.

I think people who don't believe in God are crazy. How can you say there is no God when you hear the birds singing these beautiful songs you didn't make?

Habits are familiar and comfortable, putting our reactions on autopilot and often leading us, instead, to great discomfort.

The limit of a person's will, at least in one respect, is the limit of that person's ability to believe.

Plant a seed of friendship reap a bouquet of happiness.

Deciding whether to trust or credit a person is always an uncertain task.

There's a lot of hip-hop that would be great with a banjo in it. It would just groove like crazy, and I hope I get to be one of the guys who does that, because it's coming. It's coming.

Ultimately it doesn't matter whether you go forwards or backwards: you need to live your life as well as you can.

I don't very much enjoy looking at paintings in general. I know too much about them. I take them apart.

"Gutta cavat lapidem." (Dripping water carves a stone.)

Earning money has a way of increasing financial intelligence quickly.

A blanket attempt to avoid mistakes is the biggest mistake of all.