My mother told me to keep on singing, and that kept me working through the cotton fields. She said God has his hand on you. You'll be singing for the world someday.

Stop your ears and close your eyes and try to find the face of love.

Life is - the way God has given it to me was just a platter - a golden platter of life laid out there for me. It's been beautiful.

Because you're mine, I walk the line.

No matter how much you've sinned, no matter how much you've stumbled, no matter how much you fall, no matter how far you've got from God, don't give up. You can still be redeemed. As someone says, keep the faith.

That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station.

I say I'm not a singer, so that means I can't sing. But - doesn't it?