It's the same thing now. When I go onstage the young people scream and holler as much as the older generation.

My mother always told me, even if a song has been done a thousand times, you can still bring something of your own to it. I'd like to think I did that.

Long as I was riding in a big Cadillac and dressed nice and had plenty of food, that's all I cared about.

The two things you can't fake are good food and good music

All the things I used to like - cookies, ice cream, gumbo - I don't like anymore.

What happens is, when I perform, I'm somewhere else. I go back in time and get in touch with who I really am. I forget my troubles, my worries.

At last my love has come along. My lonely days are over and life is like a song.

I wanna show that gospel, country, blues, rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll are all just really one thing. Those are the American music and that is the American culture.

A lot of people think the blues is depressing but that's not the blues I'm singing. When I'm singing blues, I singing life. People can't stand to listen to the blues, they've got to be phonies.

When I sing for myself, I probably sing for anyone who has any kind of hurt, any kind of bad feelings, good feelings, ups and downs, highs and lows, that kind of thing.

I want a Sunday kind of love A love to last past Saturday night And I’d like to know it’s more than love at first sight

Two things I can't stand - sitting and sleeping.

You’re scaring the dog, ” Trish pointed out. She rarely called me by name. They do that inprisoner of war camps, I’ve heard. Depersonalization.

We are Easter people living in a Good Friday world.

So, it's good to be here, wherever I am.

We South Asians have sycophancy in our genes!

Everywhere resoundeth the voices of those who preach death; and the earth is full of those to whom death hath to be preached.

Servitude, in many cases, is not forced upon by the masters, but a temptation of the servants.

People who light up like Roman candles come down in the dark very quickly.

I'm a woman who wants her chocolate.

With all the things that you could be, you never could learn how to be me.