“Most people don’t have that willingness to break bad habits. They have a lot of excuses and they talk like victims.”

Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.

Some songs are just like tattoos for your brain… you hear them and they’re affixed to you.

One day there will be no borders, no boundaries, no flags and no countries and the only passport will be the heart.

If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment.

Your wrinkles either show that you’re nasty, cranky, and senile, or that you’re always smiling.

You’re always cursing, you’re always praying and you’re always making love. It ain’t do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do.

I’m laughing because I know the secret of life. And the secret of life is that I have validated my existence. I know that I am worth more than my house, my bank account, or any physical thing.

I am here to give voice to the invisible.

I have wisdom. I feel love. I live in the present and I try to present a dimension that brings harmony and healing.

Ever since I was a child I’ve always been very attracted to melodies. Whether I hear Jeff Beck, a choir, an ocean or the wind, there’s always a melody in there.

If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that’s what it’s all about.

The more choices we give patients affected by depression, the better we will serve them.

My job in this life is to give people spiritual ecstasy through music. In my concerts people cry, laugh, dance. If they climaxed spiritually, I did my job. I did it decently and honestly.

There is more value in placing a flower in a rifle barrel than making war. As Jimi Hendrix used to say, musical notes have more importance than bullets.

There’s a melody in everything. And once you find the melody, then you connect immediately with the heart. Because sometimes English or Spanish, Swahili or any language gets in the way. But nothing penetrates the heart faster than the melody.

A lot of people said to me, ‘Enough with the guest vocalists for a while. We want to hear the Mexican play the guitar!’

Nothing is so great an example of bad manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; If you flatter only one or two, you offend the rest.

Things are sweeter when they’re lost. I know–because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.

First, say to yourself, ‘I’m totally independent of the good or bad opinions of others.’ Second: ‘I’m beneath no one.’ Third: ‘I’m fearless in the face of any and all challenges.’

A bad song, the three best singers in the world cannot save it, and that’s the bottom line.

Radical transparency fosters goodness in so many ways for the same reasons that bad things are more likely to take place behind closed doors.

Take responsibility for your last bad decision, and then let it go. Don’t blame others or make excuses for yourself.

Your character defects are not where you’re bad, but where you’re wounded. But no matter who or what causes the wound, it’s yours now and you’re responsible for it.

To experience the good you have to have seen the bad; plus it makes you appreciate blessings more. Tough times taught me to be a fighter.