Aretha Franklin

“President Clinton, I sang at his post-inauguration party out in Maryland.”

“I just got into Mike Tyson. My security people kept saying, 'Haven't you seen him yet?' Well, I finally did, and he's got a real knockout punch.”

“People are not as nice as they used to be. There used to be a time when we conversed. You don't get a lot of real responses now. They used to be more polite and well-mannered people, general...”

“I just loved working with George Benson, whom I very much enjoy musically and as a person.”

“I sing, and the musicians kind of fit things around me.”

“I'm the lady next door when I'm not on stage.”

“I'm really an old-fashioned girl - I like to be romanced.”

“I think women and children and older people are the three least-respected groups in our society.”

“I picked up some wonderful things just listening to other pianists that I appreciate, and that would be Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson, Vladimir Horowitz, and Art Tatum. Those are the pianis...”

“There's a lot of great singers out here.”

“You could call my piano my trademark, or one of my trademarks.”

“Prince is gone. But the music will go on.”

“He was definitely an original and a one-of-a-kind. Truly there was only one Prince.”

“I sing to the realists; people who accept it like it is.”

“I've never recorded anything I didn't like.”

“I'm not ever going to retire. That's - that wouldn't be good, for one, just to go somewhere and sit down and do nothing. Please. No, that's not moi.”

“I love the Ritz.”

“I always felt rock and roll was very, very wholesome music.”

“It's very satisfying. To perform the way you want to. And the way you know that you can.”

“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.”