I was signed to MGM. I was in Vegas for sixteen weeks at the Sands Hotel.

I didn't need to depend on the record company to publish my records.

Apollo Records signed me for my gospel ability.

I'm still amazed people remembered and didn't give up on me.

The secret was to just be cool, stay in God's graces, and work it out.

I walked out of the Chinese restaurant with a fat check, a record deal, and a box of shrimp egg foo yung!

The deals that were made for Black artists at that time were not the deals that were made for white artists.

I don't need to make a fortune, I need to survive.

Leonard Chess passed, and that was the end of the Chess label for that time.

I didn't do the marching down the streets, jumping in front of the lines and holding hands... that wasn't me.

I want to be a soul singer.

I was signed to MGM. I was in Vegas for sixteen weeks at the Sands Hotel.

That was my choice at that time, and I still say Nixon was a great president. A very beautiful and wise man.

As you grow older, you learn to understand life a little better.

You gotta do it with class and integrity. If not, you're gonna drag yourself through the mud.

But we didn't have the financial structure, like the right attorneys, the right managers, the right accountants, and we were going against the grain of what black entertainers is supposed to do.

We were using the record as a tool to invest money into real estate all through the South, because we were living in an era where the South was changing.

We had some problems - my children were kidnapped during that time, and it just changed my whole way of thinking, from being in show business and everything else.

If we could buy these properties and then invest in the Black community, with our own McDonald's, with our own Kentucky Fried Chickens, it was gonna be a great move.

I didn't need to borrow money from the record company, because if I had my own publishing company, and I had my own writers, I'd have enough to get and do whatever I wanted to do.

I should have my own publishing companies.

We were grooving, at that point, in the same direction, but remember, Roy Hamilton and myself were going into a path and a direction that had no programming.

My manager was Buddy Glee, who put me together with Mike Curb, and was basically the idea to bring some soul to the label and bring something different to the label besides the Hank Williams situation.

Sometimes its controversy, but we all have our choices that we make.

As you grow older you learn to understand life a little better.

I was always taught that Latin, Caribbean people were cousins to me, as well as blues was a cousin to me, as well as Africans were direct relatives to me. It was all a part of my language.

People used to always complain that horror films have no stories, that it's all just about kills and stuff like that.

The Republicans are wrong in thinking that the rich create jobs. In reality, many of the richest Americans have been investing in efficiency innovations rather than to create jobs. And the Democrats are wrong, because growth won't happen if they distribute the wealth of the wealthy to everyone else.

One of the greatest obstacles to escaping poverty is the staggering cost of higher education.

I generally don't climb something if it makes me feel fear. The beauty of soloing is that there's no pressure - no one's telling me to do it. So if something seems scary, I don't have any obligation to do it. I can prepare further or just walk away entirely.

Actually, guest star roles are really hard. Since you have to walk into a show where the cast has been working together for a long period of time, it can be a real challenge. And you have to feel your way around that while still making an impact on the overall effect of the show.

You save money so your kids can go to college - no matter what they are or who they are. They're your kids; you gotta support them.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

I often close my eyes because I can't tolerate violence.

Before the show, there's about two or two and a half hours of meet and greets with radio stations, promoters, people who I need to see and thank and talk to to make sure they remember me. And then, I get - out of all that day of talking and smiling and shaking hands and getting photos, I get to sing for two hours.

You need to overlook your flaws mistakes and regrets if you want to get ahead and move on towards the finish line.

We are the only institution in our society that can question a president on a regular basis and make him accountable. Otherwise, he could be king.

I like Mitch Daniels on the fiscal conservative issues. You disagree with him on this idea that social issues, you takeoff the table. I do that for two reasons. I think the fiscal issues in a sense are a symptom of a lot of the deeper cultural issues in America. I don't think they are as disconnected as he thinks.

I worked for Sam Peckinpah on quite a bit of action in his films, and he got excited once in a while.

Hey beautiful You must be tired after running all day in my mind.

A little more than 30 years ago, Bernie Marcus, Arthur Blank, Pat Farrah and I got together and founded The Home Depot.

Moving to the country is a very bold thing to do. You can have vague romantic notions about doing that, but in actuality, it can be a terrifying thing.

People say, 'Oh, to be the daughter of Picasso!' But it's not as extravagant as it seems. He was very special, very vibrant, but he was my father. I didn't have another.

To have God speak to the heart is a majestic experience, an experience that people may miss if they monopolize the conversation and never pause to hear God's responses.

The fundamentalists have taken the fun out of the mental.

Well, it is true that they did - the Pentagon did impose rules for governing the handling of the Koran in January of 2003, after there had been complaints about the handling of the Koran from detainees, from the International Red Cross.

Common sense invents and constructs no less than its own field than science does in its domain. It is, however, in the nature of common sense not to be aware of this situation.

Facts can be turned into art if one is artful enough.

An unlucky rich man is more capable of satisfying his desires and of riding out disaster when it strikes, but a lucky man is better off than him...He is the one who deserves to be described as happy. But until he is dead, you had better refrain from calling him happy, and just call him fortunate.