The only time that I am really truly happy—when I feel at my best—is when I'm on the stage.

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

It is not your environment, it is you- the quality of your mind, the integrity of your soul and the determination of your will that will decide your future and shape your life.

Pioneering spirit should continue, not to conquer the planet or space ... but rather to improve the quality of life.

There is no magic move or secret that creates victory but lots of little items that, when added together, can make you victorious.

I always had the sense that nothing was never good enough - striving for perfection. My mother and I had a sort of typical mother-daughter relationship.

With a teacher it is necessary to be sensitive to their directions; most of the time they won't say much. You have to be still and silent to understand.

I'd love to have Michael Jackson [in my show] because he's black and white. So he would appeal to a universal demographic.

How you gon' win when you ain't right within. Uh uh come again

Conway Twitty was always our local hero while I was growing up. He had a series of good bands. I wanted to sit in, if Conway would let me. And he did a couple of times.

Stories are the things that allow us to persuade each other that we're human.

Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy sideThy every action let the goddess guide.