You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things.

They asked me, How did you learn to sing the blues like that? How did you learn to sing that heavy? I just opened my mouth and that's what I sounded like. You can't make up something that you don't feel. I didn't make it up. I just opened my mouth and it existed.

I don't know what happened. I just exploded. I'd never sung like that before. I used to stand still and sing simple, but you can't sing like that in front of a rock band. You have to sing loud and move wild with all that in back of you. Now, I don't know how to perform any other way.

My father wouldn't get us a TV, he wouldn't allow a TV in the house.

When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.

I always wanted to be an artist, whatever that was, like other chicks want to be stewardesses. I read. I painted. I thought.

At my concerts most of the chicks are looking for liberation, they think I'm gonna show 'em how to do it.