“Leave me alone. I’m fine.”

I’m never gonna quit, cause quitting’ just ain’t my schtick.

Take it off, baby, take it all off. I want you the way you came into the world.

Men used the music to get the girls in the mood to make love. So either way you had it, Barry White is the one artist who actually was in your bedroom with you at your most sacred, sensuous moment of your life.

I woke up one morning, went downstairs, said ‘Good morning’ to my mother and nearly scared both of us to death.’

We forget that this music, music made by my brothers and sisters, is still a baby. It’s just beginning. When I think of the possibilities, it makes me smile.

I’m so thankful that your mine, your sweetness is my weakness.

You’re the first, the last, and my everything and the answer to all my dreams. You’re my sun, my moon, my guiding star, my kind of wonderful, that’s what you are

As a boy, I believed freedom for America meant freedom for me. There was a time I believed every word spoken.

Mama tried to save us from the streets, but the streets were too strong.

There’s a time when people give their words to each other it has to mean something. I’m a street cat. I’ve belonged in gangs and when you had a partner, you went down with your partner whether you won the fight or lost it. You went down together.

I’ve always loved War’s Low Rider and Sly Stone’s Thank You, and I just wanted to put my take on them.

A kid who was on welfare, because he refused to steal anybody’s property or take anybody’s money. You found life a lot tougher.

Elton John’s opinion turned the label’s opinion around, all in a day.

I went to jail at 16 for stealing tires off Cadillacs. When I got out I said, Never again.

I didn’t mind working in the clubs, but I resented it being a club where pimps hang out. Because the music that I create is of a higher intellect than that. It not only encompasses pimps, but whores, ballplayers, executives… everybody.

Blacks own so little of the music business, it’s pathetic. But I see that changing soon. Black artists, black businessmen and women will unite.

There are probably a few library fines I haven’t paid yet, but I’m a pretty clean-cut guy overall.

I believed there was enough evidence to go to trial. Grand jury said there wasn’t. Okay, fine. Do I have a right to disagree with the grand jury? Many Americans believe O.J. Simpson was guilty.

History will dictate what my legacy is. And ‘maverick’ is fine, because I am.

People go through life blindly, ignoring death like revellers at a party feasting on fine foods. They ignore that later they will have to go to the toilet, so they do not bother to find out where there is one.

For me, there’s a fine line between telling a story that’s fictional with lots of details and then removing yourself too much from it, so it’s bloodless, a little too fictional.

I’m fine with that. People say things when it’s time to say them.

I always was alone. And I’m alone today. It’s fine. I have lots of friends, but not in terms of working together.

Science was tearing through the ‘fine-spun ecclesiastical cobwebs’.