By growing up in Alabama, I had a melting pot of the whole pie: R&B, gospel, country.

Soul is a feeling, not a color.

No one can deny, this love I have inside, and I'll give it all to you, my endless love.

When your past calls, don't answer. It has nothing new to say.

Greatness comes from fear. Fear can either shut us down and we go home, or we fight through it.

I just like people. I'll hold a conversation at a gas station. It's not about the fame and the fortune, I just like people.

Let the music play on would be my legacy.

Simplicity is the key to what I do.

I find myself going out on the road to get my confidence back, because I lose it at home.

Forget about 40 years in show business. Just surviving 27 years of Nicole Richie is enough.

I'm easy like Sunday Morning.

In the context of today, this WAS heroism.

When works of art are presented like rare butterflies on the walls, they're decontextualized. We admire their beauty, and I have nothing against that, per se. But there is more to art than that.

I hope I'm not implying role of contemporary poet for myself, although there's a kind of resonant paradigm. It's traditionally a difficult role.

I am wonderfully content with a God who does not deal with me as my sins deserve.

Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently.

What difference does it make whether you're looking at a photograph or looking at a still life in front of you? You still have to look.

The children-my own and other people's-became the passion of my personal and professional life.

If you want to shine over the world, first let the wisdom shines over you!

When I stopped performing for 16 years and lived in Michigan and was married and raising my children, I wrote about four or five books. I haven't published them.

In nature there's no blemish but the mind. None can be called deformed but the unkind.