I'm from California, and still live in LA.

I constantly tour, even when I don't have a record out.

I know I have sex appeal, but I've never felt like an actual sex symbol. Fans sometimes think I am. The majority of them are sweet about it, but occasionally somebody weird becomes totally fixated upon me.

It's just a whole different thing, and it's just that my life has been a blessing, and I thank god every day for the gifts that he has given me and for my daughter and to be able to watch her grow and be a part of her joys and her excitement and what she wants to do in life.

My first album came out in 1979.

They told me that they are starting a classic label, and wanted me to be the first artist. So I signed, and am producing myself, and writing my own music, but I'm their first artist on their classic label. And I have creative control.

You never know where a blessing can come from.

I just think it's a blessing that I was able to have the gift of words and to be able to put them into music. I was given a great gift all the way around. I didn't ever have to really go out and look for songs, you know.

I'm from California, and still live in LA.

I have a different mentality when it comes to catering to a man, I just won't allow it. Don't get me wrong, I'll do for you but I'm not taking care of no man and catering to him for life; he better be bringing something to the table. I learned that from my mother and my grandmother.

There were times I used to go to parties when I was, you know, like 15-, 16-years-old, and I'd always bring my guitar, and all my friends would be like, sing one of the Smokey songs. And everything I sang was his music, and I could sound just like him.

I play guitar, piano, bass and percussion.

All in all, it's been a wonderful, wonderful ride. I don't plan on stopping anytime soon.

I think that's the problem in a lot of music. We've got these record labels.

Overall my race hasn't been a problem. I'm a Black artist with White skin. At the end of the day you have to sing what's in your own soul.

I try to keep my ear to the streets without sacrificing who I am as an artist. If a song needs a drum machine I'll use a drum machine. If it needs a drummer, I'll use a real drummer.

This is a gift. This is a gift from God. It's really like the old Biblical passage that talks about your body being a temple. That's not to say that I've never done anything but I've never abused myself. Never gone over the top for a long period of time.

I write in all keys. I've always written in all keys. I've probably written a lot of songs in A.

I have enough love to last me a lifetime! Thank God I'll never lose my imagination and my passion. That's really what it is. I'm still passionate about what I do.

I still have a passion for the music, which is such a beautiful thing. I still wake up in the middle of the night out of a dream and have a melody in my head, and run to my piano.

I would walk down the hall with my guitar and play for anyone that would listen. As a young kid I was really driven and I was going to make it happen no matter what.

OK, so truth hurts - but what else does truth do?

I always try to be a trend setter. That's what I always tell young people when I'm giving them advice. To go with their heart and don't follow the trends.

I have a deep affinity for New Orleans - its like a second home to me - they treat me like I'm their own.

I just really always try to do what's in my heart and I'm still passionate about the music; I still love what I am doing.

One thing, however, I know with certainty: violence, or the direct threat of violence, of the kind we have seen in the past few days, is totally unjustified as a response to any published word or image.

In Missouri, where I come from, we don't talk about what we do - we just do it. If we talk about it, it's seen as bragging.

For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.

To fall in love is easy even to remain in it is not difficult our human loneliness is cause enough. But is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be.

The heavy guitars are the ones that sound good. They are not that comfortable but they do sound great.

Throughout my 20s I spent a lot of time just playing and not really working, but fortunately for me I continued to get just enough work, and have a reason to wake up in the morning. I really empathize with some of my peers who had success in the early years then it dries up, and so there's no reason to get up in the morning.

I'm an all or nothing kind of girl. When I give my heart, I give myself totally.

I'm tired of this discussion of capitalism and socialism; we live in the 21st century, we need an economic system that has democracy as its underpinnings and an ethical code.

I'm not superstitious about good luck charms and all that. I don't have any ring or any tangible thing as a charm. But I like to have at least one of my parents with me during my shows. It gives me strength to find their faces... or my brothers... in the audience. It comforts me.

I have never tried to fiddle my role as leader of the city of Sheffield, as an MP or as a minister.

When I started to write realistic, real fiction, the voices that were the strongest for me - the characters that I heard, the people that I knew - were the ones from my childhood.

No one cares to speak to an unwilling listener. An arrow never lodges in a stone: often it recoils upon the shooter of it.

Secularism does not accept many things as absolutes. Its principal objectives are pleasure and self-interest. Often, those who embrace secularism have a different look about them.

A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.

I graduated on a Friday. By Monday, I was doing Shakespeare in the Park.

So, I just kind of played the way I played and then eventually we kind of figured out what worked best for the band. So, I definitely changed my stuff up and I think we're playing really tight now.

Songwriting is best. It's the hardest finest tightest. It also requires the most discipline.

I went from being a senator, a young senator, to being considered for vice president, running for president, being a vice presidential candidate, and becoming a national public figure. All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want.

All children are born pure egoists. They perceive their needs to the exclusion of all others. Only through socialization do they learn that some forms of gratification must be deferred and others denied.

I'm trying to learn classical piano, Mozart and Beethoven and stuff. I took lessons when I was younger and now I sort of sight read the music and play it by ear. It's fun. It takes up a lot of time. I practice a couple of hours a day, but I find it soothing.

My mom bought me a white Strat, but that wasn't what I wanted, so I went to a guitar store in Cleveland and - the guy told me it was a really good deal - made an even swap for a blue Teisco Del Ray. I loved that guitar and used it a bunch.

I used to be a record collector. Mark Ronson, Questlove and I used to be part of, like, a record-trading crew.

I've been a little bit obsessed with religion, without being a religious person, for about a decade.

Creating life at the speed of light is part of a new industrial revolution. Manufacturing will shift from centralised factories to a distributed, domestic manufacturing future, thanks to the rise of 3D printer technology.