20th-century Musician Quotes

You're a shining star
No matter who you are
Shining bright to see
What you can truly be.

The spiritual experience isn't one of filling ourselves up— with either religious or intellectual beliefs—but of emptying ourselves so that we can experience what is, directly, unfiltered.

I love coffee in a cup, little fuzzy pups, bourbon in a glass, and grass.

Anyone who says the Backstreet Boys can't sing is crazy. They're probably just reading some highbrow critic who hates anyone the general public embraces. I'm sorry, but those boys sing their butts off. They work hard on their choreography, and on their harmonies. Their tracks are tight and solid. Their songs are musical and memorable.

You women have heard of jalopies,
You've heard the noise they make,
But let me introduce my new Rocket '88.
Yes it's great, just won't wait,
Everybody likes my Rocket '88.

Let's put it this way: I did not get in trouble every time I drank, but every time I got in trouble, I'd been drinking

The artist is like a secretary, whether he is a writer, a musician or a painter: He keeps records of his time.

We are the scatterlings of Africa On a journey to the stars.

To be young, gifted and black.
Oh what a lovely precious dream.
To be young, gifted and black,
Open your heart to what I mean.
In the whole world you know
There are a billion boys and girls
Who are young, gifted and black,
And that's a fact.

The first education should be the harmonious development of the child's physical, mental and spiritual powers. Providing warm and understanding responses to your children's 'hearts' accomplishes far more than pressuring book knowledge into their minds.

Sunday doesn't just prepare us for the week ahead - it prepares us for eternity.

Not only was it enough to be a cover band, it was perhaps the highest calling. After all, if you could play music recorded by others, stay true to the original, and still add fire and flare, why not?

That's certainly the roots of heavy metal. That whole sense of revolution and wanting to be powerful is definetly a puberty thing. Fans don't have to be offended by that. Everybody goes through it. That's why heavy metal is so powerful.

So full of action, my name should be a verb.
My voice will float on every note
When I clear my throat, that's all she wrote.

On why prison and work songs are liberation songs:

You're walking down life's road, society's foot is on your throat, every which way you turn you can't get from under that foot. And you reach a fork in the road and you can either lie down and die, or insist upon your life.

In New Orleans you're born into music and you die into music and music all in between.

As soon as it was understood that we could handle things in our own way, it was the thrill of my life to walk out on that stage with people just hemming the band in.

It takes a little time sometimes
To get your feet back on the ground...

Call him up, call my Jesus up
Tell him what you want!

James Cleveland

Well, I'm gonna preach you a sermon 'bout Old Man Atom I don't mean the Adam in the Bible datum I don't mean the Adam that Mother Eve mated I mean that thing that science liberated Einstein says he's scared And when Einstein's scared, I'm scared.

We bring more than a paycheck
to our loved ones and family.
We bring home asbestosis, silicosis,
brown lung, black lung disease.
And radiation hits the children
before they've even been conceived.

Ysaye Maria Barnwell

Old churches must not simply stand as monuments to the past but as spiritual grandparents that have invested in the future by passing on their life to others and releasing their offspring to form new congregations. Church planting needs to be given priority by old-line denominations.

What one leads on-sight, in good, strong style, safely, is what one's ability is.

If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy, I don't mind 'cause you mean that much to me. Ain't too proud to beg and you know it Please don't leave me, girl.

A child is born with no state of mind
Blind to the ways of mankind
God is smiling on you but He's frowning too
Because only God knows what you'll go through.