“You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.”

Them that’s got shall get, Them that’s not shall lose. So the Bible says, And it still is news. Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child that’s got his own.

I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.

If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it’s got to be that way in music or it isn’t music.

One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.

People don’t understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.

I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.

If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.

God bless the child that’s got his own.

The blues to me is like being very sad, very sick, going to church, being very happy … it’s sort of a mixed up thing. You just have to feel it.

I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.

I don’t think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life.

Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.

In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it’s the worst kind of hell for those who love you.

The difficult I’ll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.

New Orleans is the only city in the world you go in to buy a pair of nylon stockings they want to know your head size.

I shaved my head about 15 years ago and the first time I shaved it, I started running my hand through my hair and it was very therapeutic.

I’m a natural blonde, but I feel like a brunette.

I get braids all the time. You can’t tell me I’m acting black because I braid my hair. That makes no sense whatsoever.

When I have really blonde hair, I usually go for a more natural look, wearing way less makeup.

Sex is too easy for women to get, and too hard for men. I mean, honestly, for a man to walk into someplace and have every woman ready to take him home, he’d have to rule the world. A woman would have to do her hair.

Your hair looks like a haystack but I like it.

I’m a natural blonde, but I feel like a brunette. I feel like people treat me now how I should be treated. People used to be shocked, when I was blond, that I wasn’t stupid.

I dyed my hair blonde when I was 14. My mom was not happy. But I love being blonde.