Quotes from Charles Bradley

With all the hurts they've been through, they find a loving way and a way to put their mind on something greater. That's what makes a good artist, a good singer: because you can hear the hurt in their voice, and you can hear the love in their voice.

I think God gave me an inner dictionary. If you play the right music that my heart loves, lyrics just come right to me.

Everybody tell me everywhere I go that I'm the closest thing to James Brown they ever seen.

With James Brown, I just learn the lyrics and then get out there and get funky with it and let my spirit free. But doing Charles Bradley, it's a lot of true, intimate words coming out of me that show me the picture inside myself.

Sometimes I have to run and hide. What I do at home sometimes is, I listen to a CD of the roughness of the ocean. I turn every light off, and I turn the stereo on, and I just go in my mind, cry, talk to God, tell him, 'I'm your child, too.' And I stay in my little solitude until I can get the strength to go outdoors.

America has been a very cold place to me, and it was good once in a while. I meet good people. Sometimes I meet bad people. But there are some things that I still haven't forgotten today that hurt that bad.

All I want to do is get me a piece of land someplace where I can say, 'This is home,' and I got nobody bothering me.

I did a tour down South someplace, and it was an all-day festival, and there were about 2,000 people. It was pouring down rain, and I went to grab the mic, and I got electrocuted. I felt the electricity flow through my body.

I want to sit in my own sorrow, cry it out, talk to God, and say, 'Give me strength, wisdom.'

James Brown came from that hard, rough life that I came from. He took the blues and added rhythm to it. And he always had the most funkiest band; I liked the way he took his words and mixed it in with the band.

If we start putting music out constantly where people don't think no more, people go crazy. We're gonna lose the love of heart, of soul. And if the world lose that, I think the world is doomed.

I just love dancing. When the music is really hitting my soul, then I really want to get into it.

Peforming as James Brown, I didn't really have to go deep in my soul the way I do as Charles Bradley.

When people are screaming when I'm on stage, I can't even find the words to thank them and tell them how much I love them, but I'll never forget all these faces.

I'm trying to stay focused - trying to open up again - and the music really did a lot of greatness for me and meeting a lot of people that really had concern and compassion for me.

James Brown really taught me a lot - his lyrics and his performance and whatever he does when he's onstage. I'll always call him a legend, and I'll always respect what he did.

I lived in the streets for three years when I was a kid, and every day, I didn't know where my next meal would come from.

I'm trying to find a home that I can come home to, and there's no stress or pressure to be scared to be in your own house.

My grandmother always told me that regardless of what the world gives you, stay humble. Stay strong in your beliefs, and be honest. And when you're wrong, be a man and say you're wrong. And be strong when you're right.

I was learning 'Changes' at the time that my mom was sick and she was leaving me. And those last verses in that song, they really struck my soul, totally.

When I went to Gabriel Roth's studio, I showed him I was good with my hands and started working as a handyman in his studio. I asked him for a chance, and he gave me a song to sing with Sharon Jones.

I was 14, and I left on my own. Living in a subway train, and police used to come in with a nightstick and say, 'You can't sleep here.' I'd get up and go across the street, get on another train, and go back the other way.

I go out of my way to acknowledge the public and let them know that I'm not always on stage. Offstage, I care. I live their life.

Give your love and never change. Be willing to die for the love you carry inside.