When I first went on the stage I was 17 and under the legal age for performers.

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

Whenever I played Columbus, Ohio, I dropped in to see my close friend, a medium who had mysterious powers. Her Indian guide was Mohawk.

We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.

We never had a bathtub. Mom would bathe me in the wooden or tin washtub in the kitchen, or in a big lard can.

I am somebody cause God don't make no junk

Many people know how to criticize, but few know how to praise.

Only those who are being burned know what fire is like.

Today or any day that phone may ring and bring good news.

There was one emotional outlet my people always had when they had the blues. That was singing.

All the men in my life have been two things: an epic and an epidemic.

Riches are not only measure with monetary value.

In the kingdom of glass everything is transparent, and there is no place to hide a dark heart.

Some only learn the value of time when it’s too late!

My experience of malaria was just taking anti-malarials, which give you strange dreams, because I don't want to get malaria.

For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own sorrow, and groans on seeing another's happiness.

You always will be singing a song or humming a line or a melody.

Retire for what? What would I do? I made my name as a person that is helping. I'm like Moses in the music business.

A mistake is valuable if you do four things with it: recognize it, admit it, learn from it, forget it

The UK is not going to leave the European Union. Of course not. We are inextricably wound up with Europe. In terms of culture, history and geography, we are a European nation.

Capitalists will sell us the rope we will hang them with.