I don't care who's playing. Even if it's my favorite artist, I'm probably not gonna go and see him.

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.

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.

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

That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.

The awful part of the writing game is that you can never be sure the stuff is any good.

The greatest war story ever told commemorates a war that established no boundaries, won no territory, and furthered no cause.

What separated the living from one another could be as impenetrable as whatever barrier separated the living from the dead.

When words can't make it better, hold my hand and don't let go.

Truly, one gets easier accustomed to a silken bed than to a sack of leaves.

It is essential that we aggressively pursue all criminal offenders, especially those who commit these heinous crimes against women - and seek the maximum penalties under the law.

They keep the old business. We keep the ongoing business.

I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.

I don't like perpetuating the stereotype of black males being drug dealers, and criminals.