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.

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?

You are not a beautiful, unique snowflake... This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.

Pakistan has made no mention of ending our tests. We have a missile program, and it is in the national interest whatever we want to do.

Death doesn't frighten me; now I can think peacefully of ending a long life.

Love is life's end, but never ending. Love is life's wealth, never spent, but ever spending. Love's life's reward, rewarded in rewarding.

To come up with the ending to a story and then work backwards is like tying your shoe with one hand only.

I caution against beginning or ending a quotation with ellipses.

We expect President Bush to implement his own vision of a two-state solution, the birth of the Palestinian State and the ending of the occupation that started in 1967.

It's precisely the disappointing stories, which have no proper ending and therefore no proper meaning, that sound true to life.

I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending.

What then is tragedy? In the Elizabethan period it was assumed that a play ending in death was a tragedy, but in recent years we have come to understand that to live on is sometimes far more tragic than death.

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.

Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.

A hard beginning maketh a good ending.

I felt Brighton was a perfect ending to a really interesting career.

Ending racial discrimination in jury selection can be accomplished only by eliminating peremptory challenges entirely.

Writing is truly a creative art - putting word to a blank piece of paper and ending up with a full-fledged story rife with character and plot.

It's a tough job to tell a story when the audience already knows the ending, and the ending is bleak.

My intent was to carry out my duty as a doctor, to end their suffering. Unfortunately, that entailed, in their cases, ending of the life.

Watergate provides a model case study of the interaction and powers of each of the branches of government. It also is a morality play with a sad and dramatic ending.

Avoid extremes: be moderate In saving and in spending; An equable and easy gait Will win an easy ending.

A better ending could not have been scripted. Of course, if we had won, that would have been better.

My answer to those who oppose my appointment as CEO is that this is really a decision of the YWCA. They want to strengthen their grassroots to advocate on behalf of women's and children's empowerment and ending racism.