I'm trying to change the root of funk, trying to make it more progressive, more melodic and more lyrically structured.

I can't hang out as loose as I used to, but I can still go down Jefferson Avenue and look in the faces of winos, pimps and junkies, all the things I'm made of.

Funkers are people who dig the funk; Little funkers, Big funkers, Old funkers, Young funkers, Foxy funkers, Mother funkers, Papa funkers.

Whether you're rich or poor, life's still cold-blooded.

She's the kind you don't take home to mother.

My teacher said I would either be a hoodlum, or a great entertainer.

I just live one day at a time.

If anything I consider myself non-violent. I'm from the hippy era, peace, love, groovy.

I'm still James Johnson. Rick James is a stage name. James Johnson keeps Rick James on the ground... Kind of sort of.

You and I, we'll be together 'til the six is nine.

Off stage it's cool-out time. You can't funk and roll ALL the time.

When you accept fallibility within yourself you become more perfect.

I've had cancer twice and if I had to pick one fate for you, cancer or fertility problems-I'd pick cancer.

Yet the best determining factor of how comfortable we are with ourselves, is our ability to laugh at ourselves.

Today is the best time to do what you couldn't do yesterday, because tomorrow might be too late.

I ruined my health drinking to other people's.

Music touches our innermost being, and in that way produces new life, a life that gives exaltation to the whole being, raising it to that perfection in which lies the fulfillment of man's life.

This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story.

The path is revealed in the treading.

At the day of judgment we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done.

Bullies generally were bullied and are hurting inside much more than you could ever imagine.