“What is love but a prelude to sorrow with heartache ahead for your goal.”

I made wine from the lilac tree/Put my heart in its recipe/It makes me see what I want to see/And be what I want to be.

It’s a good time for black people to be alive.

If I want to take a particular form of blues somewhere else I have the equipment to do it but I never even thought of it.

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band’s lead singer, Eric Burdon. “So you’re the honky,” she said, “who stole my song and got a hit out of it?

My name sounds French but that’s just a stage name.

How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?

What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.

I had heard blues and jazz all my life but I was never aware that it was associated with nightclubs and drinking.

Funk, gospel, blues is all out of slavery times, out of depression, out of sorrow.

Once I understood Bach’s music, I wanted to be a concert pianist. Bach made me dedicate my life to music, and it was that teacher who introduced me to his world.

Music is an art and art has its own rules.

I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs and good ones.

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.

My love is like the wind and wild is the wind. Give me more than one caress, satisfy my hungriness. Let the wind blow through your heart for wild is the wind.

I think the rich will eventually have to cave in too, because the economic situation around the world is not gonna tolerate the United States being on top forever.

The only one you should compare yourself to is you. Your mission is to become better today than you were yesterday.

Not living for food, but living for the sake of an ideal, that is the goal of education.

You’ll never catch me bragging about goals, but I’ll talk all you want about my assists.

I like Balotelli: he’s even crazier than me. He can score a winner, then set fire to the hotel.

A good goal is like a strenuous exercise – it makes you stretch.

Pursue your goals even in the face of difficulties, and convert adversities into opportunities.

People are happiest when they have goals, small and large, because they can look forward to attaining them.

The dreams I chased took me on a journey, a journey more rewarding than the goals.