Top 81 Quotes & Sayings by Little Richard

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Little Richard.

Last updated on November 4, 2024.

Richard Wayne Penniman, known professionally as Little Richard, was an American musician, singer, and songwriter. He was an influential figure in popular music and culture for seven decades. Described as the "Architect of Rock and Roll", Richard's most celebrated work dates from the mid-1950s, when his charismatic showmanship and dynamic music, characterized by frenetic piano playing, pounding back beat and raspy shouted vocals, laid the foundation for rock and roll. Richard's innovative emotive vocalizations and uptempo rhythmic music also played a key role in the formation of other popular music genres, including soul and funk. He influenced numerous singers and musicians across musical genres from rock to hip hop; his music helped shape rhythm and blues for generations.

American - Musician | December 5, 1932 - May 9, 2020

Source: Wikipedia

I don't give the devil credit for creating nothing.

Little Richard

Greed has taken the whole universe, and nobody is worried about their soul.

Little Richard

I let people know that it was all right to do the kinds of things I did.

Little Richard

I am the architect of rock n' roll. I have to be a fan of all its forms.

Little Richard

I've never gotten money from most of those records. And I made those records: In the studio, they'd just give me a bunch of words, I'd make up a song! The rhythm and everything. 'Good Golly Miss Molly'! And I didn't get a dime for it.

Little Richard

God gives us the ability, but rock 'n' roll was created by men.

Little Richard

I only wore makeup when I went onstage.

Little Richard

But when I went on the stage to do a show, I would put on makeup because I felt that it enhanced my act; it drew attention to what I was doing.

Little Richard

Like, my mother would have company over, and I would sing so they'd pay attention to me.

Little Richard

I also think that what's wrong with all of us is that we don't show enough love toward each other.

Little Richard

I try to be a guide for people, to make their darkness bright and to make the pathway light, and never to condemn or control or criticize.

Little Richard

Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that's not what I call rock.

Little Richard

I also like the banging piano - that old good-time piano.

Little Richard

I don't think a woman has to act like a man to show that she has strength.

Little Richard

I don't think that you have to be effeminate to be sensitive.

Little Richard

I think they saw me as something like a deliverer, a way out. My means of expression, my music, was a way in which a lot of people wished they could express themselves and couldn't.

Little Richard

I love God, and I'm a follower.

Little Richard

To me, true rock 'n' roll has a lot of bottom in it.

Little Richard

I just want the world to know that God is present, that he's alive for ever more.

Little Richard

Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.

Little Richard

Some situations you cause yourself.

Little Richard

I never accepted the idea that I had to be guided by some pattern or blueprint.

Little Richard

I did what I felt, and I felt what I did, at all costs.

Little Richard

But I was singing loud, and most singers weren't singing loud.

Little Richard

Gay people are the sweetest, kindest, most artistic, warmest and most thoughtful people in the world. And since the beginning of time all they've ever been is kicked.

Little Richard

My mother died, and I couldn't stand to look at her bedroom any more. I'd get sick. I've always been a momma's boy.

Little Richard

Rock 'n' roll offered me a platform to speak what I felt. It also offered me a platform to support my mama and my brothers and sisters - twelve children.

Little Richard

I tried to look presentable for a show, but not for sexual attraction. It was strictly for show business.

Little Richard

I was really kind of shy as a child. But I would do things for attention.

Little Richard

People called rock & roll 'African music.' They called it 'voodoo music.' They said that it would drive the kids insane. They said that it was just a flash in the pan - the same thing that they always used to say about hip-hop.

Little Richard

I always knew I was a man, always felt that I was a man, always wanted to be a man.

Little Richard

A lot of people call me the architect of rock & roll. I don't call myself that, but I believe it's true.

Little Richard

I'm very much a gentleman in what I do.

Little Richard

No, I've never truly been a minister.

Little Richard

But men are so full of greed today, they'll sell anything for a little piece of money.

Little Richard

And I don't get down on nobody else for doing whatever else they do. To each his own.

Little Richard

If I had my life to live over, I would want to be a man.

Little Richard

I would wear flamboyant clothes and long hair, and most singers at the time didn't.

Little Richard

Black people lived right by the railroad tracks, and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy, and I thought: I'm gonna make a song that sounds like that.

Little Richard

I think God made a woman to be strong and not to be trampled under the feet of men. I've always felt this way because my mother was a very strong woman, without a husband.

Little Richard

I never heard nobody in my audience call me any kind of names.

Little Richard

And I think a woman should find it a joy to be female because God made both male and female.

Little Richard

I'm a conductor of revivals. The only minister in the whole package. Little Richard, the evangelist.

Little Richard

I think that a man should be caring.

Little Richard

But I'm a rock 'n' roll singer; that's my livelihood, my occupation.

Little Richard

I thank God for making me a man.

Little Richard

I'm here to sing.

Little Richard

When you sit down and think about what rock 'n' roll music really is, then you have to change that question. Played up-tempo, you call it rock 'n' roll; at a regular tempo, you call it rhythm and blues.

Little Richard

I think my legacy should be that when I started in show business, there wasn't no such thing as rock n' roll. When I started with 'Tutti Frutti,' that's when rock really started rocking.

Little Richard

God is omnipotent, He is omniscient, and He is ever present.

Little Richard

It's hard to have a friend when your name's a household word.

Little Richard

I was always my own person.

Little Richard

I think people who don't believe in God are crazy. How can you say there is no God when you hear the birds singing these beautiful songs you didn't make?

Little Richard

It was a way out of poverty. It was a way to success. It was a way to education. And it was a way to a brighter day for me.

Little Richard

I've never seen the devil create music.

Little Richard

And I'd like to give my love to everybody, and let them know that the grass may look greener on the other side, but believe me, it's just as hard to cut.

Little Richard

I look back on my life, comin' out of Macon, Georgia - I never thought I'd be a superstar, a living legend. I never heard of no rock and roll in my life.

Little Richard

Plus I love Tanya Tucker and I love country music.

Little Richard

A-bop-bop-a-loom-op-a-lop-bop-boom.

Little Richard

I am the innovator. I am the originator. I am the emancipator. I am the architect of rock 'n' roll!

Little Richard