I try to make the audience forget all their problems -- for an hour and a half or so get them out of themselves, and space, and time, and consciousness.

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.

Love one another." If we took those simple words to heart, we'd already be the Buddhas Jesus wanted us to be.

It is useless to cry over a thing which is not belong to you....

I rather like bad wine; one gets so bored with good wine.

In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: 'Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.' Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.

There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.

Don't worry about tomorrow, let it fix itself. Today has a problem of its own.

Let her tell stories and dance in the rain, somersault, tumble and run, her joys must be high as her sorrows are deep, let her grow like a weed in the sun.

But there was one other thing that the grown-ups also knew, and it was this: that however small the chance might be of striking lucky, the chance is there. The chance had to be there.

I urge you to be as impudent as you dare. BE BOLD, BE BOLD, BE BOLD.

The world turned into a big black hole while my daughter was on the verge of life and death.