I’ve learned to live with rage. In some ways, it’s my rage that keeps me going. Without it, I would have been whipped long ago. With it, I got a lot more songs to sing.

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

Every time we compromise, push the limits, or forego Biblical boundaries, we cheat on God…we hurt Him.

A smile becomes you or perhaps you become you when you smile.

People talk about computer programmers as if computers are our whole lives. That's simply not true.

He that is dishonest, trusts nobody.

When I was younger, I was actually looking forward to getting older, to have more insight, more understanding.

Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.

The world isn't purposeful. It isn't ruled by reason. The world wants to play. Fashion queens have always aroused more interest than future generations and their fate.

People from the most horrendous of childhoods can have good lives, but it comes down to a very seemingly simple word. 'Choice.'

If the Republicans get control back of the United States Senate, we will no longer have a check and balance on the White House, on the Republican Congress.

My faith has no bed to sleep upon but omnipotence.