See, I don't like places where people can't dance - don't like clubs or theatres where a bunch of bourgeois people sit around tip, tip, tipping their fingers.

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

Don't forget your history nor your destiny

[A] great embarrassing fact… haunts all attempts to represent the market as the highest form of human freedom: that historically, impersonal, commercial markets originate in theft.

Modern architecture does not mean the use of immature new materials; the main thing is to refine materials in a more human direction.

If you sit by the wayside waiting for Success, your knees will be too stiff to follow her when she passes.

Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity.

... To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom.

So long as little children are allowed to suffer, there is no true love in this world.

Pause and remember - You will make it to the other side of this hardship. One day you will look back with wiser eyes, understanding and gratitude. Hang in there!

Prejudice is one of the world's greatest labor-saving devices; it enables you to form an opinion without having to dig up the facts.

My mandate...is to promote the protection, rights and welfare of children.