Bonnie Raitt
Not being a natural songwriter... for me the appreciation of a great song and the writers came early on, growing up in a musical family. My dad got to sing songs by some of the greatest writers of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Especially girls, but any kids exposed to music programs and arts programs do much better on their tests. They have a better chance of going to college. They can focus better. You know, we're not just automatons learning how to work machines and do engineering and math and science. All of that's great, but you've got to build a whole person.
Since I was 20 years old, I've been a kind of corporation. I'd wake up in the morning and my job was to be 'Bonnie Raitt' in capital letters.
One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years.
I finally learned to accept that I can't make radio play blues any more than I could get Reagan out of the White House.
Superficial pop will always exist - there've always been Fabians - but when people like Dire Straits and Bruce Hornsby start having hits, it suggests that there's a revolution going on in music.
People come up to me all the time who saw Dad in 'Oklahoma!' or 'Pajama Game,' and they say they'll never forget it.
My love was Bob Dylan, but as I got older I realized a good ballad was a good ballad.
The anti-nuke movement has important and far-reaching implications for grassroots organizing. It can unite kids and musicians, everybody, whether they're leftist or rightist, or radical, or Republican, because energy is energy. But in fact, it is a real political struggle - it shows people that it's big business against the people.
Life gets mighty precious when there's less of it to waste.Collection: Waste
We can live in fear or act out of hope.Collection: Inspirational
You know, a lot of people feel that sobriety is about just stopping using whatever it was that you appeared to be addicted to, but it really has to do with a way of looking at your life and taking accountability.Collection: People
Ugly ducklings don't turn into swans and glide off down the lake. Whether your sunglasses are on or off, you only see the world you make.Collection: Lakes
How unthinkable that, in a country of such bursting plenty, so many people are facing ongoing hunger and poverty. If we are truly each other's keepers, let's support school lunches, food stamps, neighborhood garden projects, and so many other wonderful programs working to put an end to this cruel and needless blight once and for all.Collection: Country
The one thing I know is that if you're not paying attention, it will come back to bite you.Collection: Attention
I just want to be as good a person as I can be.Collection: Want
The women's movement resurgence of standing up for so many things that were kind of sleepy there for a decade or so, there's been a reawakening and I think the consciousness movement in general is dovetailing with a lot of recovery and self-empowerment.Collection: Recovery
It's always enjoyable to listen to a friend's work, but if it doesn't resonate with you, then you can just appreciate it and it inspires you in its own way.Collection: Appreciate
There's lots of flaws and frailties and cracks in the armor, and nobody wants to put themselves out there as some kind of Joan of Arc because none of us can live up to that, but I'm grateful to be a role model and be respected because I have a whole slew of people, men and women, that I feel the same way about.Collection: Grateful
We can choose, you know, we ain't no amoeba.Collection: Adages
How I measure success is getting to make another record and being able to the come back to the same town and play again cause you sold out the last time.Collection: Play
I'm glad people think I'm a badass. I'm a rock and roller, and I'm an R&B and a blueswoman. I don't do fairy music, although I love Celtic music and sensitive music. There's a balance between ballads and kick-ass songs.Collection: Song
I would love to see a revival of what we had against the war in the '60s - we could do these teach-ins on the internet, live and split screen, and have real in-depth debate between people that are on the "other" side of issues - nuclear, gun control, whatever. We could really be having a much more democratically involved and exciting debate with people emailing their questions and having a virtual town meeting.Collection: Real
The connection between toxicity and cancer and safe air and water and food, all of that was important all along, as were women's and human rights issues, but the nuke issue and the safe energy movement became really important to me in the mid-'70s.Collection: Cancer
Nobody went out to pasture, and a lot of people are doing their best work. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Sting are at the top of their game. I mean, Tony Bennett is the coolest guy I ever met! We have to figure out how to break out of this age ghetto.Collection: Mean
I don't need any drug to show me Heaven And I sure know how to spend plenty of time cleaning Hell But I'm missin' that feeling of falling.Collection: Fall
One of the things that I'm glad about, though, is that regular people can relate to me.Collection: People
I don't know that I'm unique in that people relate to my music, but I would hope people would say that I'm honest and that I do the best work I can possibly do instead of coasting.Collection: Unique
Maybe the idea of me is more powerful than I perceive myself being.Collection: Powerful
I'm glad I get singled out for my slide guitar-playing, which isn't that difficult to do. I didn't take guitar lessons, but I just love the way it sounds, almost like the human voice.Collection: Voice
I'm the same on stage as I am off stage. A lot of people who I admire - Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne - are not that different either. You hope that if you met them that they'd be as nice and well-rounded as they appear.Collection: Nice
With slide guitar, you're just hanging this piece of glass on your hand. It's a really beautiful instrument in that it's so responsive, you're just slipping your hand back and forth.Collection: Beautiful
There are so many people out there working with great grassroots and global and national organizations that are unsung heroes to me.Collection: Hero
I hope I'm an integrous person who cleans up their messes when I've been a jerk.Collection: Jerk
I would like to inspire a lot of people to be active and give back.Collection: Giving
I learned a lot about what it was like to have to use different hotels and not use the bathrooms, which made me more determined to be an activist.Collection: Use
When it's a funky uptempo song, you're basically having the same kind of release you would have when you have sex, only it lasts longer. Whether you're playing it on the guitar or on the dance floor, you're in that moment.Collection: Song
I'm one of those people who just doesn't plan my personal life. I plan my professional life.Collection: People
I'm proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story - it's casting, editing, cinematography.Collection: Editing
I think that we have a unique opportunity as performers and artists to be kind of the town criers and also to get more people to listen, so that's a blessing and a responsibility that I take very seriously.Collection: Responsibility
I'm happy to have been a positive influence.Collection: Influence
The fact is that this conversation is going on at every level at every age, we're all going, "God, what a jerk I've been," "How could I have married that guy?" or "How could I have done this or that?" With time, this is the gift of being older, that you get to look back and say, "It wasn't all about them."Collection: Guy
I don't go into any album with a concept or a deliberate direction. It's more letting the best music that really appeals to me at the time, the best songs that I find after many months and years of search and sifting through my collection, and asking radio people and journalists. It's really an ongoing search that's as much daunting as it is somewhat exciting.Collection: Song
It's a lot harder to be clear-headed, but the good stuff is when you start realizing who's really you.Collection: Stuff
The challenge of course is in sobriety and that's been the blessing, to realize, to take accountability for the ways that your own thinking impacts your happiness, and your serenity, and your ability to be a productive and a loving, giving member of your family and society.Collection: Blessing
When you love a song so much you have to sing, you know how you feel - it releases something in you that resonates as true, whether it's James Brown or Joni Mitchell.Collection: Song
Really important issues are getting lost, so I can say I'm glad to be a citizen of the planet and do my part.Collection: Issues
I don't want to sound like a self-help book, but it really has been transformative for me to take a look at my relationships in a new way and see my part in them. Everybody's going through that.Collection: Book
Those of us with a microphone who are blessed with the gift of being in the public eye have a special opportunity to give voice to all those groups whose activism is sometimes ignored or put on the back pages with the the dumbing down of television and the tabloidization of journalism. As Ralph Nader called it, "sound barks," not even sound bites.Collection: Blessed