“If you can get them once, man, get them standing up when they should be sitting down, sweaty when they should be decorous, smile when they should be applauding politely-”

Texas is OK if you want to settle down and do your own thing quietly, but it’s not for outrageous people, and I was always outrageous.

Honey, if you’ve had your eye on a piece of talent and that chick down the road has been getting all the action, then you know what you gotta do… Try A Little Bit Harder.

Like, I don’t think I’d go off the road for long now, for life with a guy no matter how good. Yeah, it’s the truth. Scary thing to say though, isn’t it?

I believe the only people who truly experience and test the application of equality are twins.

I started out to be a person on the street, just like everybody else. I didn’t start out to be a singer. But I got sort of swept up in this singing thing, and after I got involved in it it got really important to me if I was good or not.

You better not compromise yourself, it’s all you’ve got.

The consequences, [screw] the implications of the actions, to hell with it all… whatever happens as a result is better than the nothingness that is inevitable with silence.

You know why we’re stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don’t let themselves feel things.

I don’t know what happened. I just exploded. I’d never sung like that before. I used to stand still and sing simple, but you can’t sing like that in front of a rock band.

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

I’m just doing what I wanted to and what feels right and not settling for bullshit and it worked. How can they be mad at that?

Don’t go looking for Mr. Right. Look for Mr. Right Now.

That’s what I’m trying to do mostly in the whole world, is not bullshit myself and not bullshit anybody else.

At my concerts most of the chicks are looking for liberation, they think I’m gonna show ’em how to do it.

You got to get it while you can.

They asked me, How did you learn to sing the blues like that? How did you learn to sing that heavy? I just opened my mouth and that’s what I sounded like.