I will play my part by singing the spirit into every open heart.

I will play my part by singing the spirit into every open heart.

I started with Sam Cooke when I was 6 or 7 years old.

People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them.

Leave them wanting more and you know they'll call you back.

It is my fondest wish that the gift of song that God has given me will flow from my soul to yours and help ease any burden that might weigh upon you.

I keep living life as it's dealt to me. Sometimes, it's not dealt 100 percent. Sometimes it's dealt on the low '30s.

Nobody could understand why a guy would love his guitar, then all of a sudden turn around and try to destroy it. Jimi was just different.

You gotta know when it's time to hang up. But when I finally go, let me go out on stage, my perfect ending. Don't let me go when I'm sick or asleep. Let me be in motion.

Chicago is old stomping grounds for me.

Estee Lauder cologne. Sam Cooke always wore it, and I started wearing it because he wore it.

I know a lot of people who are not here anymore, and I wonder why I'm still here... Not a day goes by that I don't think about Sam Cooke. His presence is so strong and so convincing to me, a true artist, a true talent, who never talked down to people.

I like to swim, I like to play with my dogs and I love to eat - but I have to start watching that because my suits are getting too small.

I met a zillion people through Ronnie Wood. He's been my friend since he was in The Faces, and he's still my best friend. A real person, earthy, working 24 hours a day, uplifting to be around, and he's still got that fire about music.

I never gave up on music, and I feel like music never gave up on me.

I think people like it when I tell them, 'I'm lucky to be here, because they are, too. Ain't nothing to do with age. There ain't nothing promised to you. Everybody's going to die.

I was hoping I could become a success to give my mother and my father a better way of living.

I was on stage with Cyndi Lauper, and my trousers split. It seemed like she was going to sing for ever.

Once upon a time, I could sing three hours. Now, when you see me say 'I'm done,' I'm done; ain't nothing left till the next night.

People think you have to go through a lot of changes to become a soul singer, You just have to go through life.

Plantation gospel music was the stuff I fell in love with when I was a kid - these beautiful melodies and these hard, hard stories.

We take things for granted, and because we wake up every day, you start talking about what you're going to do next week. I said, 'Who told you you would be here next week?'

When I first played New York, it was with James Brown at the Apollo, and I was playing in a band under the name The Valentinos. I remember Sam Cooke saying, 'I want you to go in there with James Brown. I couldn't be as hard on you as James Brown would be.' But we came out marching like soldiers.

When I want to check out how my life's been, I go through my albums. They steps in my life.

When I was a kid, during those days, you couldn't use instruments. It was against the pastor's religion, so all the singers would make these instruments with their voices. It was just unbelievable. I couldn't explain it.

You knew the difference between Barbra Streisand and Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles, straight away. Now everyone sounds like each other, and I don't think that's right.

You learn if you mind stay open. And once you can't learn no more, your mind must be closed. Life goes on and you keep growing, you know?

Thank you to all for your prayers and good wishes. It gave me the strength to persevere and warmed my heart.

Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul.

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

A man must be strong in that profession, he must have vigor of body and mind, yet I am all out of breath if I walk up a hill; I have not the heart to crush even a fly.

Well, after I had the heart attack, it was a very simple choice. What the doctor told me I did and I did it religiously. I ate nothing but lean turkey breast or chicken breast or a piece of fish that was very lean. I mean I stayed away from everything.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.

I try to teach my heart not to want things it can't have.

The heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good.

When you know something in your heart, you better not be quiet about it. You better speak out about it.

Death comes not to the living soul, nor age to the loving heart.

In every tyrant's heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue.

There is no persuasiveness more effectual than the transparency of a single heart, of a sincere life.

Grissom is pretty asexual. He's not that interested in anything other than work - except for Lady Heather. She's the closest to getting his heart of anyone.

The tender heart, the broken and contrite spirit, are to me far above all the joys that I could ever hope for in this vale of tears.

I've had a big heart my whole life; all the Korn fans know that. A lot of people told me that I was different.

Peace will be when you accept it in your heart.

When not deeply engaged in creative activities, or numbed out by the TV, I felt empty. My heart hurt. I often felt hollow or as if I were some sort of wispy ghost, barely existing.

Good directors say, Here's where the play is. They stand by the heart of the matter. Some of them stand beside it.

Since love first made the breast an instrument Of fierce lamenting, by its flame my heart Was molten to a mirror, like a rose I pluck my breast apart, that I may hang This mirror in your sight.