Top 149 Quotes & Sayings by Aretha Franklin
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Aretha Franklin.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Don't say Aretha is making a comeback, because I've never been away!
In terms of helping people understand and know each other a little better, music is universal - universal and transporting.
Women absolutely deserve respect.
I'm really an old-fashioned girl - I like to be romanced.
I sing to the realists; people who accept it like it is.
Be your own artist, and always be confident in what you're doing. If you're not going to be confident, you might as well not be doing it.
Politics are not my arena. Music is.
People really don't have to give you anything, so appreciate what people give you.
Men don't like eating out of cans. And I don't like eating out of cans too much, either.
I had not been in the jazz environment, having been brought up in the church. But once I got to New York, and I was signed to perform at The Village Gate and the Vanguard and clubs like that, and these - the Vanguard was one of the most elite, if not the most elite, jazz club out there.
I've been around long enough for people to know who I am and what my contributions are. They know me as more than just an artist. I think they know me as a woman as well.
When God loves you, what can be better than that?
Everybody wants respect. In their own way, three-year-olds would like respect, and acknowledgment, in their terms.
For many years, I've wanted to do one, and I've always mentioned it to the chieftains, and they would say things like, 'Oh well. Christmas albums don't sell,' and things like that. But that's not the point. Christmas albums are important. The music is important. The season is important.
I think you have a lot of really good artists today. You have your Beyonce, Usher, Nicki Minaj and the like. But our generation, the artists were stronger. You're talking about myself, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Gladys Knight, The Temptations, The Four Tops.
It really is an honor if I can be inspirational to a younger singer or person. It means I've done my job.
I used to have hamburgers coming and going, especially when I was on the road. Now, occasionally I will still have that quarter pounder because I love fast food, but you have to keep it to a minimum. I am now opting for salads and just healthier lunches.
Who hasn't had a weight issue? If not the body, certainly the big head!
I donate heavily to the church and various churches in the Detroit community and food banks.
I am doing what I love to do, and you cannot beat that, especially when the audience appreciates what you prepare for them. It's very, very gratifying.
I guess I could've been a prima ballerina. Or a nurse. Aretha Nightingale!
When I first started, I wore Ceil Chapman gowns. I've been wondering for years what happened to the Ceil Chapman line of clothing.
I think it would be a far greater world if people were kinder and more respectful to each other.
Being the Queen is not all about singing, and being a diva is not all about singing. It has much to do with your service to people. And your social contributions to your community and your civic contributions as well.
Every birthday is a gift. Every day is a gift.
Sometimes, what you're looking for is already there.
It's very satisfying. To perform the way you want to. And the way you know that you can.
Music changes, and I'm gonna change right along with it.
Sam Cooke had a huge influence on me. He left the gospel field at one point and went into the secular, and he had this huge hit, 'You Send Me.' Irma, my older sister, and I heard 'You Send Me' on the radio while we were driving through the South one night. We had to stop the car. We got out and danced around the car out on the highway.
I think the hardest thing is losing weight. That's the hardest thing more than anything else.
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.
My faith always has been and always will be important to me.
I sing, and the musicians kind of fit things around me.
My upbringing was in the church. We had to attend regularly. And, of course, the church provided a training ground for me, so to speak, as a young vocalist and certainly gave me all of the spiritual values that I needed as a young lady.
Well, 20 Grammys is not bad.
The duet with Frank Sinatra, 'What Now My Love,' is one of my favorites.
You have singers that are trained, and then you have natural singers: people that, in my opinion, were just born to sing. And hopefully, I am one of them.
I don't do crazy things - I just don't.
Columbia was a wonderful label for me. Wonderful. The records I made there garnered me an audience. I won a number of polls during the years that I was at Columbia. The Downbeat Jazz Poll. Leonard Feather, who was a huge critic back in the day, different polls that he had. The Playboy poll, a number of polls. So the music was great.
Many of my friends were there at Motown. The studio was only a few blocks from where my dad's home was, where we lived.
I was in my dad's church, his Baptist church, and I think the first song I ever performed was 'Jesus Be a Fence Around Me.'
I like writing and don't confine myself to just the words or just the music. But I don't particularly write songs with myself in mind.
There is no way in the world anyone else could do my wedding other than myself, along with whomever I select to do various things.
You cannot define a person on just one thing. You can't just forget all these wonderful and good things that a person has done because one thing didn't come off the way you thought it should come off.
Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It's transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, years back, to the very moment certain things happened in your life. It's uplifting, it's encouraging, it's strengthening.
We've come a long way, but there is still a lot of discrimination.
Beyonce is a very hard-working woman. Astrologically, for whatever it's worth, she's a Virgo - like Michael Jackson, a hard worker.
I love 'Anne of Green Gables.' I have for years. That's one of my favourite things. She's such a can-do kind of girl; that's why I'm crazy about her.
It's easy for a singer to sometimes pick up on another singer's sound, but that's just copying.
Falling out of love is like losing weight. It's a lot easier putting it on than taking it off.
I've met my share of guys who have insulted and assaulted my intelligence with their stories and games. I say hello and goodbye!
The term 'Sock it to me!' was a big, big thing in our neighborhood - all the kids were saying it.
I think women and children and older people are the three least-respected groups in our society.
I always felt rock and roll was very, very wholesome music.
The love of my life? I'm much too young to answer that question.
We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It's our basic human right.
I'm a big woman. I need big hair.
I wouldn't be without Google, and I love Facebook.
My mentor was Clara Ward of the famous Ward gospel singers of Philadelphia. And my dad was my coach. He coached me. And just my natural love for music is what drove me.
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.
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