"You can be the best musician in the world, but if you can't get along with people, you ain't going nowhere."

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

"I'm a woman, and I'm black, and I'm a singer. And I'm going to sing what I want to sing."

"Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose."

"I'm always making a comeback, but nobody ever tells me where I've been."