My mother always wanted me to be a jazz singer, but I always wanted to be raunchy.

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

You see, people are everywhere. They are everything. No matter who we are, or what we do, people are involved in our lives. If those people are poisonous, our lives will be poisonous also.

just because a mage wears the black robes does not make him evil.

The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him.

RUIN, v. To destroy. Specifically, to destroy a maid's belief in the virtue of maids.

We're creating a little niche for ourselves instead of working the whole canvas.

When we become connected to the supreme spirit then we automatically becomes situated in our spiritual identity.

The way to stop political correctness is to not do it. If someone says, You offended me then you say I don't care! If they're offended by the truth, that's their issue!

For me, diversity whether you think of it as race or gender, it's not a trend, it's a human movement, it's a human feeling, it's a human desire.

A club hurts the flesh, but evil words hurt the bone.

The Halifax area has long played a major role in Canada's military operations, being the port of departure for convoys, naval task forces and army units over the past 100 years or so.