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.

Death and hell are never full, and neither are men's eyes.

[My mother] called [my voice] the gift.

I came to believe in a power much higher than I

Inside the walls of a prison my body may be, but my Lord has set my soul free.

My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don't ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father.

Those that have lived longer than us always have something to teach us, that we can take with us for the rest of our lives.