Aretha Franklin

I’ve never recorded anything I didn’t like.

I’ve always felt rock and roll was very, very wholesome music.

If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is all about.

Don’t say Aretha is making a comeback, because I’ve never been away!

I’m the lady next door when I’m not on stage.

Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I’m using to the highest degree possible the gift that God gave me to use. I’m happy with that.

Doctoring her seemed to her as absurd as putting together the pieces of a broken vase. Her heart was broken. Why would they try to cure her with pills and powders?

You don’t measure love in time. You measure love in transformation. Sometimes the longest connections yield little growth, while the briefest of encounters change everything. The heart doesn’t wear a watch.

We are asleep until we fall in Love!

I’m a different man now. I’m still a romantic, I still believe in love, but when I met Barbara I was looking for it. Now, I don’t know.

I always loved you, and if one loves anyone, one loves the whole person, just as they are and not as one would like them to be. -Dolly (Anna Karenina)

I’m searching for something that I can’t reach.

Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

I don’t feel that no big stone should be put over my head, saying he did this, he did that. Unless there’s something that I really did do. I believe I’m just ordinary. And I’d like for people to think of me that way, as just a guy that tried. Wanted to be loved by other people because he loved people.

Love can be hard. Love requires you to be kind when you are angry, patient when you feel anxious, compassionate when you judge others, caring when you feel apathetic, trust when you’ve been wronged, let go when you want to hold on, know that the other person is you, take risks when you’re scared, to always see the lesson and never look back once you’ve decided. – Jackson Kiddard

It doesn’t matter if you have a valentine or not – just love yourself and be your own.

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.

To get rid of an enemy one must love him.

If you wanna break these walls down, you’re gonna get bruised.

I was a poem, she was a melody, songs emerged between us.

O ’tis love, ’tis love, ’tis love that makes the world go round!