When I look out at the people and they look at me and they're smiling, then I know that I'm loved. That is the time when I have no worries, no problems.

You know the one with the big ears? Wait a minute, he ain't my president, he might be yours, he ain't my president. You know that woman he had singing for him, singing my song - she's gonna get her a- whipped. The great Beyoncé But I can't stand Beyoncé. She has no business up there, singing up there on a big ol' president day singing my song that I've been singing forever.

I'm not a braggart, but when I was a little girl people used to come from all over Hollywood to hear me sing.

Jazz took too much discipline. You have to come in at the right place, which is different than me singing the blues, where I can sing, 'Oh, baby,' if there's a pause in the melody. With jazz, you better leave that space open, or put in something real cool.

The music was thunder and joy. Lightning bolts of happiness and praise, foot-stomping, dance-shouting, good-feeling singing from the soul.

Johnny Guitar... just one of my favorite singers of all time. I met him when we were both on the road with Johnny Otis in the '50s when I was a teenager. We traveled the country in a car together.I would hear him sing every night.

I'm not a bourgeois person, never will be.