If you don't like Louis Armstrong, you don't know how to love.

Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.

Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say.

When you sing gospel you have a feeling there is a cure for what's wrong.

It is easy to be independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you haven't got a thing, that's the Lord's test.

Man has no nobler function than to defend the truth.

God can make you anything you want to be, but you have to put everything in his hands.

Baby, black promoters oppressed me before white promoters ever got hold of me. Don't talk skin to me.

Gospel songs are the songs of hope. When you sing gospel you have the feeling there is a cure for what's wrong, but when you are through with the blues, you've got nothing to rest on.

I sing God's music because it makes me feel free. It gives me hope. With the blues, when you finish, you still have the blues.

Without a song, each day would be a century.

Brighten the corner where you are. You don’t blame God for placing you in a dark corner… You rather have to thank him for giving you the light to make it bright!

Never quit on life, keep fighting your way through it.

A platform without the Holy Spirit is like land without a spring. If we gain our Promise Land without Living Water, it will become desolate.

Most New Yorkers spent their lives somewhere between the fruit cart and the fifth floor. To see the city from a few hundred feet above the riffraff was pretty celestial. We gave the moment its due.

The image of the journalist as wallflower at the orgy has been replaced by the journalist as the life of the party.

If you want change, it has to be generational.

Hee must have a long spoone, shall eat with the devill.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle Such lamps within the dome of this dim world That the pale name of priest might shrink and dwindle Into the Hell from which it first was furled.

On Darjeeling, I was on set every day and I acted as the second unit director and a producer on that film. I was there throughout the whole process. On Moonrise Kingdom, I showed up for one day.