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

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

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

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.

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

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.

This is the world you have made yourself, now you have to live in it.

Birds flying high you know how I feel Sun in the sky you know how I feel Breeze driftin’ on by you know how I feel And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me And I’m feeling good I’m feeling good.

I’m just human, I have faults like anyone.

I do love to sing Jacques Brel songs, intensely. I get terribly excited, just by reading a couple of lines in any one of his songs.

I am also a writer. That is a fact not known by the public in general.

I still stay in touch with Elinor Donahue. I’ve known Elinor since she was 14-years-old.

Constants are widely known for the detestable practice of changing their values; we should prepare ourselves against the consequences of such fickleness

I can tell you that I’d rather be kissed by my dogs than by some people I’ve known.

You know, I’m just not going to get into American politics.

I just wrote about childhood as I had known it.

I was known around the college for jamming in the lounge.

There was a lot of playing going on, and the New Yorkers, of course, were a completely different crowd from what I’d known.