If a song's about something I've experienced or that could've happened to me it's good. But if it's alien to me, I couldn't lend anything to it. Because that's what soul is all about.

We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It's our basic human right.

Be your own artist, and always be confident in what youre doing. If youre not going to be confident, you might as well not be doing it.

Soul is a constant. It's cultural. It's always going to be there, in different flavors and degrees.

I'm a big woman. I need big hair.

If you disrespect everybody that you run into, how in the world do you think everybody's supposed to respect you?

People really don't have to give you anything, so appreciate what people give you. And just don't let that go to your head, whatever it is they give you.

Don't say Aretha is making a comeback, because I've never been away!

Falling out of love is like losing weight. It's a lot easier putting it on than taking it off.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.

My faith always has been and always will be important to me.

Considering things in the ecumenical measure, we are the microbes of the Universe.

I let the performance speak for itself.

My house, my house, though thou art small, Thou art to me the Escurial.

Comedy - and I say this with humility - comedy needs me.

Your readers should be so compelled to read your copy that they cannot stop reading until they read all of it as if sliding down a slippery slide.

The nerve. Threatening you and not being precise about it.

We have created not a Brave New World, but a vulgar marketplace, where human attributes come with a price tag.

We realized that the world of popular culture had been creating the perfect candidate for many years: the female champion of the universe.

You are not my high school crush, idiot.” “Great. I can die happy, then.

From the fruit of his lips a man enjoys good things.