If you want me to sing this Christmas song with the feeling and the meaning, you better see if you can locate that check.

The Lord doesn't like us to be dead. Be alive. Sometimes I dance to the glory of the Lord, because He said so.

I don't worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey.

This is the place to see the stars - Hollywood Bowl.

Put your mind on the gospel. And remember - there's one God for all.

Everybody needs somebody.

Without a song, each day would be a century.

When you are through with the blues, you've got nothing to rest on.

I'll come to any benefit if I see SCLC get all the money.

When you sing gospel you have a feeling there is a cure for what's wrong.

They thought I was a success as soon as I started paying the bills.

Anybody that sings the blues is in a deep pit, yelling for help.

I close my eyes when I sing so I can feel the song better.

Sometimes you ask God for something and you don't know what you're asking.

My hands, my feet, I throw my whole body to say all that is within me.

Blues are the songs of despair, but gospel songs are the songs of hope.

Baby, black promoters oppressed me before white promoters ever got hold of me. Don't talk skin to me.

Money just draws flies.

Time is important to me because I want to sing long enough to leave a message. I'm used to singing in churches where nobody would dare stop me until the Lord arrives!

God can make you anything you want to be, but you have to put everything in his hands.

The old Devil gets mad when you're trying to do good. Pray that God will move the stumbling blocks.

How can you sing of amazing grace and all God's wonders without using your hands?

I hope to bring people to God with my songs.

Do you know most of the Jewish songs have the same trend of sadness as Negro spirituals?

If you want me to sing this Christmas song with the feeling and the meaning, you better see if you can locate that check.

Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say.

It is easy to be independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you haven't got a thing, that's the Lord's test.

One thing about playing the real jazz is that you can't count it.

The trouble with records is that they're too short.

You're blessed if you have the strength to work.

The mind and the voice by themselves are not sufficient.

Anybody singing the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help.

Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.

If you believe in God, He will open the windows of heaven and pour blessings upon you.

When you are through with the blues youve got nothing to rest on.

Blues are the songs of despair but gospel songs are the songs of hope.

Its easy to be independent when youve got money. But to be independent when you havent got a thing thats the Lords test.

It's easy to be independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you haven't got a thing—that's the Lord's test.

I get a little behind during Lent, but it comes out even at Christmas.

If you pray enough for things, I am proof that they can happen. I feel like a kid on Christmas day now, every day. It's something I have wanted for a long time and I am as happy as anyone to be here. It is great to be back at my first love.

When I was 12, all I wanted for Christmas was a trampoline or a four-wheeler. I ended up getting both presents for Christmas.

Christmas renews our youth by stirring our wonder. The capacity for wonder has been called our most pregnant human faculty, for in it are born our art, our science, our religion.

Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it.

Christmas albums are not something you do frequently.

Fantastic! Right in the middle of that long stretch between Christmas and Spring Break, your coats are getting dirty, everything's dark, dingy - what a great time for a movie!

But Tammy Faye calls me, and Ron Jeremy calls me, Erik Estrada sends me a Christmas card every year.

Christmas to a child is the first terrible proof that to travel hopefully is better than to arrive.