My music is pretty honest. I can't rap on science fiction. Punk is from the street.

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.

In the old days, it had been talent and style and brilliance and now it was more and more productivity.

Money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all.

What happens to the rest of something when you smash its heart?

I don't belong on this earth. I always feel out of place - like a visitor.

The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands.

The enslaver is enslaved, the hater, harmed.

I think people should be given a test much like driver's tests as to whether they're capable of being parents!

More and more as time has gone on, I realize that playing is really more about listening than it is about playing.

Really now, search your soul, lovie-is the vampire so bad? All he does is drink blood.

I'm at Miramax now, where I've actually been treated like a Prince.