“I would trade all my tomorrow’s for one single yesterday.”

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.

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

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.

Any man who doesn’t love his mama can’t be no friend of mine.

I don’t do talk shows or go on Dr. Phil’s show. He’s a friend of mine, and, no, he doesn’t give me any advice. He doesn’t give solicited advice.

My lawyer has been a good friend of mine for a long time. He and I continuously have conversations.

The accent of one’s birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one’s speech.

Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty… mine’s putting in an express lane.

For mines are for men, not for money. And money is not something to go mad about, and throw your hat into the air for.

I’ve read a lot of books on the laws of attraction, and in my home, I have a big book on Muhammad Ali, which I’ve read because he is, like, a hero of mine, but other than that, no, I’m not a big reader.

Muhammad Ali is a legend, a hero of mine.