“Fans are what make a performer and I've always taken them seriously.”

“I was always a dreamer, in childhood especially. People thought I was a little strange.”

“No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.”

“For most entertainers, there is a single experience, one defining moment, when confidence replaces the self-doubt that most of us wrestle with.”

“I grew up not liking my father very much. I never saw him cry. But he must have. Everybody cries.”

“The time I spent thinking about how I was better than somebody else or worrying about somebody else's attitude was time I could put to better use.”

“I am the perfect version of me.”

“But if you tame me, then weshall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, Ishall be unique in all the world.”

“I don't want the world to keep turning without me on it.”

“I have a love-hate relationship with performing.”

“In the tide of these wild thoughts we checked our fancy, remembering that only on the rare grains called planets can life gain foothold, and that all this wealth of restless jewels was but a waste ...”