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

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band’s lead singer, Eric Burdon. “So you’re the honky,” she said, “who stole my song and got a hit out of it?

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

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

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 still hold hollow hopes for the day, my heart keeps it beat whenever I hear your name.

I always thought I’d like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph, and no name. Well, actually, I’d like it to say ‘figment.’

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

It is outrageous to utter the name of Jesus Christ and live in Judaism.

I never want to put my name on something that I don’t love or wouldn’t wear myself.

I wish not merely to be called Christian, but also to be Christian.

Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name.

There can be no life which does not contain something to be grateful for, and the habit of gratitude is one of the most powerful assets of success and happiness which can be named.