I went to jail at 16 for stealing tires off Cadillacs. When I got out I said, Never again.

There's people making babies to my music. That's nice.

When I commit, I commit with my whole heart, my whole being. I know the Bible like the back of my hand.

No one could understand the bond between me and my brother. I struggled to understand the forces that drove his soul in one direction and mine in another.

I'm very happy with this new record. It's dealing with different aspects of love-it's me making a statement about people doing something with their lives. It is about caring for others.

The whole system of society tells you what to do.

I went to jail at 16 for stealing tires off Cadillacs. When I got out I said, Never again.

One preacher turned me on, another turned me off.

When I saw corruption, I was forced to find truth on my own. I couldn't swallow the hypocrisy.

As a boy, I believed freedom for America meant freedom for me. There was a time I believed every word spoken.

I kept my babies fed. I could have dumped them, but I didn't. I decided that whatever trip I was on, they were going with me. You're looking at a real daddy.

Disco deserved a better name, a beautiful name because it was a beautiful art form. It made the consumer beautiful. The consumer was the star.

I quit high school on my birthday. It was my senior year and I didn't see the point. This was 1962, and I was ready to make music.

I'll come to you with gifts of knowledge, wisdom and truth.

Mama tried to save us from the streets, but the streets were too strong.

We were ready to launch Barry White, but the record company wouldn't put it out. Said it wouldn't sell.

Most families had four, five brothers. But because it was just me and Darryl, we had to be twice as strong.

The cops picked me up for attempted murder. I can still see the detectives, licking their chops. Thought they had me. Two weeks later, the cat came out of a coma and told the truth. I was innocent.

I've always loved War's Low Rider and Sly Stone's Thank You, and I just wanted to put my take on them.

I try to tell a story musically in a song.

People are always looking for me to be a freak, weird.

Elton John's opinion turned the label's opinion around, all in a day.

We forget that this music, music made by my brothers and sisters, is still a baby. It's just beginning. When I think of the possibilities, it makes me smile.

I don't know if it's my music, my lyrics, my sound, and knowing the music business the way I do-all I can say is, my career has lasted way longer than I expected.

Disco deserved a better name a beautiful name because it was a beautiful art form. It made the consumer beautiful. The consumer was the star.

Life never works out the way you think it will. But you just have to deal with it.

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown.

I'm more interested in where I'll be in five or 10 years than where I am now.

Divinity. That's what I'm trying to get at, in everything I write.

Never tell a story because it is true: tell it because it is a good story.

I know that the arts are important. I'm not denying that, but I can't associate myself with all the claptrap that goes on around it.

For changes to be of any true value theyve got to be lasting and consistent.

I always say God doesn't need me, but I need Him in my life to survive in this world and over temptation. That's Who keeps me humble every time.

Fall in love when youre ready not when youre lonely.

'I don't want to grow up,' Tom Waits said it. I live it. I put myself in a position to be a kid as long as I want to. I play loud music and scream for a living.

When you play a character, there are choices you have to make about the past, the present, the future, etc. You have to make those choices on your own a lot.

Do not let the temporal pain of discipline you need to acquire knowledge stop you from acquiring it.

Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life. Too many of us divide and dissipate our energies in debating actions which should be taken for granted.

I was 22 when JFK was murdered, and I will never recover from it... Never.

My dog was with me all the time. I talked to my dog. She was my best buddy. I shared all my secrets with her, but I don't think I every really tried jokes out with the dog.

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.

Pakistan is riddled with problems that are rooted in the disproportionate power of the state. Aid has only boosted that power.

When I was young, it was difficult to imagine entering a world where my parents succeeded so much and I could have risked failing. It would have felt much harder.

Oh, mercy, I think we're all storytellers, you know. You think of the excuses you told your parents for why you got home late. I just never gave it up.

I absolutely haven't set out to burnish a reputation as a macho figure by picking fights.

If you're locked to the words on the script, as good as those scripted words are, if you didn't have the time to rehearse them correctly or if the perceived dynamic between the actors is different from what the writer imagined, and you're not allowed to stray from that, you're going to have a stilted scene.

There is probably nothing like living together for blinding people to each other.

I think that what we should do is have short, clipped conversations on the telephone so someone can always get us, not talking about inane stuff and having someone trying to get you. I also think we've just got to be more sensitive toward other people and not call them at night if you know they've been working.

I don't really collect guitars.