I'm having fun just being a musician as well as an artist at this point.

Life is too short to harbor any hostilities towards anybody.

I never want to fake it. That's my whole thing.

It doesn't mean that I won't be sexy or hip or anything like that.

The line between greatness and obscurity is very, very small.

In the last couple of years I've been picking up my guitar again.

But my attitude about it is I have miles to go before I sleep.

I mean, on the food chain, do instruments really rate? I don't think so.

Music should probably provide answers in terms of lyrical content, and giving people a sense of togetherness and oneness, as opposed to being alone in their thoughts and dilemmas or regrets or happiness or whatever.

I like that sense of we're all on the same page and trying to get the job done.

There was a time in American history when almost every white person knew who Aretha Franklin was.

I think you create your own hipness.

I adore being with Roberta. I adore being in her spiritual light. I adore being close to her talent and gifts.

I have to choose songs that represent my personality.

If you think about it, everything we do in life is set to some kind of music.

There weren't any white people in this country who didn't know who Gladys Knight was. Or the Pips were, as far as that's concerned.

I'm having fun just being a musician as well as an artist at this point.

I'd sing with Roberta Flack in a taxi if you called up and said she'd be in it.

For me, the other thing is not just a strong sense of spirituality.

If you have a Stradivarius and nobody to play it, it's just a Stradivarius. Or is it even that? It's nothing.

Trends don't mean very much.

I'm not angry at anyone.

If you think about it, Aretha did basically the same things that I do.

Every significant event that takes place in our lives is set to some kind of music.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

The artist need not know very much; best of all let him work instinctively and paint as naturally as he breathes or walks.

What an artist learns matters little. What he himself discovers has a real worth for him, and gives him the necessary incitement to work.

Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

I'm inspired by nature. Other artist's work is important for developing my perception.

There is only one position for an artist anywhere; and that is upright.

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

To say that an artist sells out means that an artist is making a conscious choice to compromise his music, to to weaken his music for the sake of commercial gain.

What do you say when someone has truly inspired you? How do you express to an artist how deeply their work has affected you?

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.

You have to find what makes you stable in the storm. Then, no matter what's happening round you, no matter what the hype or the publicity, you can still manage to make leaps in your work as an artist.

The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world.

I've always felt that if one was going to take seriously this vocation as an artist, you have to get beyond that decorative facade.

Art is a private thing, the artist makes it for himself; a comprehensible work is the product of a journalist. We need works that are strong, straight, precise, and forever beyond understanding.

The most colorful section of a bookstore is the display of SF books, with art by people like Wayne Barlow, who is a terrific artist.

Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.

Let not a man do what his sense of right bids him not to do, nor desire what it forbids him to desire. This is sufficient. The skillful artist will not alter his measures for the sake of a stupid workman.

I so much appreciate it when anybody tries to make something and tries to be an artist - I'm happy to see the work.

The artist is seen like a producer of commodities, like a factory that turns our refrigerators.

I've also been willing to share any help that I could give to any other artist.

An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature.

What is it they want from the man that they didn't get from the work? What do they expect? What is there left when he's done with his work, what's any artist but the dregs of his work, the human shambles that follows it around?

No artist work is so high, so noble, so grand, so enduring, so important for all time, as the making of character is a child.

I left Jamaica for a while, because as an artist I need to experience different things, see the world, have different energies. Living in one place is not good for me.