“I started singing rhythmically, and now I’m learning from Otis Redding to push a song instead of just sliding over it”

I gotta go on doin’ it the way I see it…I got no choice but to take it like I see it. I’m here to have a party while I’m on this earth..

You are what you settle for.

I always wanted to be an artist, whatever that was, like other chicks want to be stewardesses. I read. I painted. I thought.

I talk to the audience, look into their eyes. I need them and they need me.

You are what you settle for. You are only as much as you settle for.

It used to make me unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn’t know what to do with it. But now I’ve learned how to make feeling work for me…

What we’ve had to do is learn to control success, put it in perspective, and not lose the essence of what we’re doing – the music.

Freedom is just another word for when you have NOTHING left to lose.

I think I think too much. That’s why I drink!

You’re only as much as you settle for. If they settle for being somebody’s dishwasher that’s their own f***ing problem.

Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

I read, I painted, I didn’t hate niggers.

Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely.

It’s not what isn’t, it’s what you wish was that makes unhappiness.

Hippies believe the world could be a better place. Beatniks believe things aren’t going to get better and say the hell with it, stay stoned and have a good time.

I can’t talk about my singing; I’m inside it. How can you describe something you’re inside of?

Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

When you forgive people, you understand the meaning of life.

We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: 1. by doing a deed; 2. by experiencing a value; and 3. by suffering.

Silence is better than unmeaning words.

The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing

Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.

In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.

Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.