"You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation."

"The blues to me is like a prayer. It's a way of talking to God."

"And nosy me i went and opened it to see what was inside. and those things are so real it scared me to death i must have threw it a mile."

"I never had a publicist. I never had a press agent. I just had my voice."

"I was turning tricks as a call girl, but I decided I wasn't going to be anybody's maid."