I adore being with Roberta. I adore being in her spiritual light. I adore being close to her talent and gifts.

I think you create your own hipness.

If you think about it, Aretha did basically the same things that I do.

I’m not angry at anyone.

The line between greatness and obscurity is very, very small.

There was a time in American history when almost every white person knew who Aretha Franklin was.

Life is too short to harbor any hostilities towards anybody.

Music should probably provide answers in terms of lyrical content, and giving people a sense of togetherness and oneness, as opposed to being alone in their thoughts and dilemmas or regrets or happiness or whatever.

I have to choose songs that represent my personality.

I adore being with Roberta. I adore being in her spiritual light. I adore being close to her talent and gifts.

I never want to fake it. That’s my whole thing.

For me, the other thing is not just a strong sense of spirituality.

There weren’t any white people in this country who didn’t know who Gladys Knight was. Or the Pips were, as far as that’s concerned.

I like that sense of we’re all on the same page and trying to get the job done.

In the last couple of years I’ve been picking up my guitar again.

Every significant event that takes place in our lives is set to some kind of music.

If you have a Stradivarius and nobody to play it, it’s just a Stradivarius. Or is it even that? It’s nothing.

I’d sing with Roberta Flack in a taxi if you called up and said she’d be in it.

I’m having fun just being a musician as well as an artist at this point.

It doesn’t mean that I won’t be sexy or hip or anything like that.

I mean, on the food chain, do instruments really rate? I don’t think so.

If you think about it, everything we do in life is set to some kind of music.

Trends don’t mean very much.

But my attitude about it is I have miles to go before I sleep.