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.

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.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions. Existence is elsewhere.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

I love living on that stage. Without that, I'd die.

There is always a type of man who says he loves his fellow men, and expects to make a living at it.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

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

The association promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in any prior decisions.

Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul 'prays in us with unspeakable groanings'.

It seems difficult, sometimes, to believe that there was a time when sentiments now become habitual, sentiments that imply not only the original imperative of conduct, but the original metaphysic of living, were by no means altogether habitual.

Nature is a temple in which living columns sometimes emit confused words. Man approaches it through forests of symbols, which observe him with familiar glances.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

A little simplification would be the first step toward rational living, I think.

I have come to terms with a lot of things, because, when all's said and done, there's really very little one can do about a lot of things. You just accept them. The point is you just have to keep on working and you just have to keep on living.

Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.

Countries under foreign command quickly forget their history, their past, their tradition, their national symbols, their way of living, often their own literary language.

Writing is a dog's life, but the only life worth living.

In my fifty years of experience and memory, I have seen the most amazing increase in the standard of living of a people ever achieved anywhere in the world. This is why I am so sure that our system of free competition and industrial development is sound and must be preserved.

If you have anything really valuable to contribute to the world it will come through the expression of your own personality, that single spark of divinity that sets you off and makes you different from every other living creature.

If you take the creation of music and the creation of your own life values as your overall goal, then living becomes a musical process.

Because the quality of living with nature and allowing it to manifest itself is different than the quality of living in a city, especially a dense city.

Yet it is awful to love a person who is a torture to you. And a fascinating person who loves you and won't hear of anything but your loving him and living right by his side through all eternity!

Another principle is, the deepest affections of our hearts gather around some human form in which are incarnated the living thoughts and ideas of the passing age.