My dad was never married. He was kind of a rolling stone. But he was never disrespectful. At the same time, even though he had women in his life when I was a kid, there wasn’t any consistency.

My mother was a professional sick person; she took a lot of pain pills. There are many people like that. It’s just how they are used to getting attention. I always remember she’s the daughter of alcoholics who’d leave her alone at Christmas time.

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.

All the songs I write are about human dynamics, whether it’s with girlfriends, boyfriends, or family.

He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.

I had a lovers quarrel with the world.

My father was a mean, controlling and manipulative person for most of his life. He was unpredictable and unstable.

When I was a child I thought I saw an angel. It had wings and kinda looked like my sister. I opened the door so some light could come into the room, and it sort of faded away. My mother said it was probably my Guardian Angel.

No one can live without relationship. You may withdraw into the mountains, become a monk, a sannyasi, wander off into the desert by yourself, but you are related. You cannot escape from that absolute fact. You cannot exist in isolation.

Jealousy is just love and hate at the same time.

Maxim for life: You get treated in life the way you teach people to treat you.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

I grew up upper-class. Private school. My dad had a Jaguar. We’re African-American, and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

My songs have always been frustrating themes, relationships that I’ve had. And now that I’m in love, I expect it to be really happy, or at least there won’t be half as much anger as there was.

In terms of the legal matter of creating a contract between two people that’s called marriage, and allowing them to live together with the protection of law, it seems to me is the way we should be moving in this country.

What I remember as a child is that other kids didn’t care about suffering. I always did.

My own eight children all march to the beat of their inner music, and in some cases, it is definitely far away from what I hear. I’ve had to honor their instincts and their choices, and merely guided them out of harm’s way until they could be their own guides.

It is very hard to not be able to engage with people in a real and honest way because they either want something from me, or they see me as something that I simply am not.

I always wanted to be loved.

A woman can bring a new love to each man she loves, providing there are not too many.

Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious.

I used to live on one candy bar a day – it cost a nickel. I always remember the candy bar was called Payday. That was my payday. And that candy bar tasted so good, at night I would take one bite, and it was so beautiful.

I used to draw a lot. If my mother would ask me to do something else, I’d have a hairy conniption. I’d just go crazy.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age.

My mama never wore a pair of pants when I was growing up, and now that’s all she wears. It was so funny for me when I first started seeing Mama wear pants. It was like it wasn’t Mama. Now I’ve bought her many a pantsuit because she just lives in them.

Love can do much, but duty more.

Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

I met my husband before I became a star, and he doesn’t care about any of it.

Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.

I have never sat down and studied the Bible, never consciously echoed its language, and am, in reality, as ignorant of it as most brought-up Christians. All of the Bible that I use in my work is remembered from childhood and is the common property of all who were brought up in English-speaking communities.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

Feels good to try, but playing a father, I’m getting a little older. I see now that I’m taking it more serious and I do want that lifestyle.

Tell your wife often how terrific she looks.

What the heck is true love? I remember feeling, back when I was 12 and ‚going‘ with this girl, ‚Is this true love?‘

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

No woman ever hates a man for being in love with her, but many a woman hate a man for being a friend to her.

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

What women need to understand is that men don’t communicate. It’s not intentional or on purpose. We’re just not as emotional. You ladies feel like you have to express yourselves.

As I get older, I tend to put more into family than I used to.

I was born in London 1947, after the war. A real wartime baby. I went to school in Brixton, and then I moved up to Yorkshire, which is in the north of England. I lived on the farms up there.

When the people you love are gone, you’re alone.

Not cohabitation but consensus constitutes marriage.

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?

Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.

You know what, I’m very attracted to someone who makes me laugh and is that charming. Really, I could be charmed by anyone. I’m just a sucker for somebody that is charming.

Friendship is essentially a partnership.

Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives.

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

When you really don’t like a guy, they’re all over you, and as soon as you act like you like them, they’re no longer interested.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

Familiarity breeds contempt – and children.

When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.

I think I am smart unless I am really, really in love, and then I am ridiculously stupid.

Love is a serious mental disease.

My daughter doesn’t even get my humor. She’s like, ‚Um, no. I don’t get it, Dad. Mmm, no, not that one, Dad.‘

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.

I feel like I’m the kind of guy that would have kids before getting married. The first thing would be kids.

I don’t have to ‚freedom-kiss‘ my wife when what I really want to do is French-kiss her.

I think I have a certain respect for people, you know. And I guess a lot of times I expect that respect to go both ways.