The mind and the voice by themselves are not sufficient.

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.

God designed life to be enjoyed by all, but human being turned things around and made it to be endured.

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.

There are thousands of causes for stress, and one antidote to stress is self-expression. That's what happens to me every day. My thoughts get off my chest, down my sleeves and onto my pad.

I don't know who decided that skinny was more appealing than not skinny. It seems arbitrary.

I'm a fish swimming by...catch me if you want me.

It's a terrible thing wishing that it can be someone else's tragedy.

Poverty is not deprivation, it is isolation.

Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable.

I'm reading Hans Kummer's "In Quest of the Sacred Baboon." It's wonderful. It's a scientist's journal about baboons, but it relates to the search for human origin.

The fewer the voices on the side of truth, the more distinct and strong must be your own.