Blues means what milk does to a baby. Blues is what the spirit is to the minister. We sing the blues because our hearts have been hurt, our souls have been disturbed.

I'm having a good time, Please don't blame me, I'm knocking myself out Don't try to tame me Let me have my fun, I've got to have my fling, Some folks say I'm blowing my top Talk don't mean a thing.

The musicians that didn't know music could play the best blues. I know that I don't want no musicians who know all about music playin' for me.

I'm just singing for the women who think they can't speak out. Can't a man alive mistreat me, 'cause I know who I am.

Maybe if I knew music, I couldn't do what I am doing.

I’ve been more places by accident than most people have been on purpose.

People think the blues is sad. They hear people moaning and such. That's not the blues. That's just somebody singing slow...The blues is about truth-telling.

Put your faith in God and confidence in yourself.

You are a storehouse of love.

I've been toldThat it's not enough toWish for dreams, that IHave to work themInto reality.

Humans do worse things with money rather than for money.

And they all have pretty children, And the children go to school, And the children go to summer camp, And then to the university, Where they are put in boxesAnd they come out all the same.

Although I am basically self taught, I consider Debussy my teacher - the most important elements are colour, light and shadow.

My inner rock chick has always been there. I grew up listening to a lot of rock music through my sisters, who were teenagers while I was young, so they had control of the radio.

Democracy is not an instant coffee.

I do not like to get the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

The Britain I love works with its friends and neighbours it doesn't walk away from them.

Human beings are not things needing to be motivated and controlled; they are four dimensional - body, mind, heart, and spirit.