Little Richard quotes: the influential music figure’s finest words.
“If at first you don’t succeed, you get back up and you try… and you try… and you try it again.”
“It’s not the size of the ship; it’s the size of the waves.”
“Some situations you cause yourself.”
“It’s time for us to have more positive messages.”
“I was really kind of shy as a child. But I would do things for attention. Like, my mother would have company over, and I would sing so they’d pay attention to me.”
“I look back on my life, coming 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.”
“I was always my own person.”
“I did what I felt, and I felt what I did, at all costs.”
“I do what I feel. I don’t care what critics say.”
“You still had a peace, a serenity: that joy, that hope, that determination, that perseverance that some day, somehow, I will make it!”
“I don’t think anybody thinks about never receiving the acclaim one believes they deserve when they’re starting out. Because when you’re an innovator, you don’t know you’re an innovator. You luck out. It’s something that happens that you don’t know is going to happen.”
“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.”
“It’s a blessing sometimes and a lesson. It makes you feel good you’re a living legend and not a dead one. People expect so much from you; you got to live so much down. The burden of all this falls on you.”
“I believe a star is living a lie if he doesn’t want his picture taken. Be a dishwasher. Take my old job at the bus station! It’s a joy when people holler. I go down to the slums. I go to poor people’s houses; they don’t even know I’m coming. I buy food and go around and hug them. I get out of the car and hug the winos. This is a joy to me because I came from the slums—you can’t forget!”
“I never accepted the idea that I had to be guided by some pattern or blueprint.”
“Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.”
“My music made your liver quiver, your bladder splatter, your knees freeze—and your big toe shoot right up in your boot!”
“A lot of people call me the architect of rock and roll. I don’t call myself that, but I believe it’s true.”
“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.”
“And I don’t get down on nobody else for doing whatever else they do. To each his own.”
“Retirement kills people. The older I get the more I like entertaining. I like good music no matter who plays it if it makes you dance. Keeping up with the trends keeps you young and beautiful.”
“I’ve learned, and now I understand that religion is my personal belief in God, and I learned rock and roll music is my living. This is my craft. This is my form of art I present to the world. This is how I make my living.”
“I’m just glad to be alive, and God has given me longevity to be here. This is what you call once in a lifetime.”
“God is God. Work is work. They both have their place. The stage is my living; that’s my livelihood. I enjoy my job. God has been very good to me, given me longevity. I ask Him to guide me and to lead me. I give Him all the credit.”
“It feels fantastic. I feel good being a living legend and the innovator and the originator. I feel good.”
“I got fame and fortune, and I lost my sense of reasoning.”
“I don’t think a woman has to act like a man to show that she has strength.”
“Your heritage is fantastic whether you’re white or black, because you could be a nobody in any color, and you could be a somebody in any color. So we have to thank God for that. I think the grass may be greener on the other side, but it’s just as hard to cut.”
“A-bop-bop-a-loom-op-a-lop-bop-boom.”
