When I'm performing for the people, I am me, then. I am that little girl who, when she was five years old, used to sing at church. Or I'm that 15-year-old young lady who wanted to be grown and wanted to sing and couldn't wait to be smokin' a cigarette, you know?

I’ve learned to live with rage. In some ways, it’s my rage that keeps me going. Without it, I would have been whipped long ago. With it, I got a lot more songs to sing.

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

See, I don't like places where people can't dance - don't like clubs or theatres where a bunch of bourgeois people sit around tip, tip, tipping their fingers.

When I'm singing the blues, I'm singing life.

I've gone through so much in my life. I should have been dead a long time ago, but I am still here, and I'm the happiest I've ever been.

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