James Brown Quotes

When I started playing, I played in R&B bands. I played James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and all that. ~ Neil Peart

I don't know karate, but I know ka-razy! ~ James Brown

Oh God almighty, another Detroit monster is Chad Smith of the Chili Peppers. Their music is intoxicating between Flea and Chad Smith. They're contemporary because they're still making good records, but I don't think there's anything new that has a groove and soulfulness. The Chili Peppers just stink of soul-and that's the ultimate compliment. They continue what James Brown created. ~ Ted Nugent

Sometimes you struggle so hard to feed your family one way, you forget to feed them the other way, with spiritual nourishment. Everybody needs that. ~ James Brown

When we heard we were topping the bill over James Brown we couldn't believe it. We tried for two days to get it changed round - I mean you can't follow an act like that. ~ Mick Jagger

Papa didn't cuss, he didn't raise a whole lot of fuss. But when we did wrong, Papa beat the hell out of us. ~ James Brown

Money won't change you, but time will take you out. ~ James Brown

Good crews are good blends of personalities: someone to lead the charge, someone to hold something in reserve; someone to pick a fight, someone to make peace; someone to think things through, someone to charge ahead without thinking. Somehow all this must mesh. That's the steepest challenge. Even after the right mixture is found, each man or woman in the boat must recognize his or her place in the fabric of the crew, accept it, and accept the others as they are. It is an exquisite thing when it all comes together in just the right way. The intense bonding and the sense of exhilaration that results from it are what many oarsmen row for, far more than for trophies or accolades. But it takes young men or women of extraordinary character as well as extraordinary physical ability to pull it off. ~ Daniel James Brown

This is a revolution of the mind, get your mind together and get away from drugs. ~ James Brown

The hardest thing about being James Brown is I have to live. I don't have no down time. ~ James Brown

Takes a man or a woman to say I'm sorry, and it takes a fool to walk away. ~ James Brown

Thank God that I had the ability to understand that I had a different beat and that I was a drummer. ~ James Brown

I stream this radio station, Radio Nova, that's based in Paris. They curate a beautiful set that's really all over the place - they'll play blues or some West African music, then A Tribe Called Quest, then funk from Ethiopia, then James Brown, and then the Beatles. It's an amazing mix. ~ Zoe Kravitz

I had to tell about my colonic, which expresses the fact why I'm so neat today as opposed to a few years ago. I never knew that the weight made that much difference. ~ James Brown

You're like a dull knife, just ain't cuttin', just talkin' loud and saying nothing ~ James Brown

The wood...taught us about survival, about overcoming difficulty, about prevailing over adversity, but it also taught us something about the underlying reason for surviving in the first place. Something about infinite beauty, about undying grace, about things larger and greater than ourselves. About the reasons we were all here. ~ Daniel James Brown

I'm a ghetto man who made good. I never forgot where I came from and who put me on top - God and Jack The Rapper. ~ James Brown

It's like James Brown used to say ... I don't know, but whatever I play it's got to be funky. ~ Curtis Jones

When I'm on stage, I'm trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don't go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it. ~ James Brown

George Pocock learned much about the hearts and souls of young men. He learned to see hope where a boy thought there was no hope, to see skill where skill was obscured by ego or by anxiety. He observed the fragility of confidence and the redemptive power of trust. ~ Daniel James Brown

Take those kids and raise them up, teach them how to drink out of a righteous cup. ~ James Brown

Harmony, balance, and rhythm. They're the three things that stay with you your whole life. Without them civilization is out of whack. And that's why an oarsman, when he goes out in life, he can fight it, he can handle life. That's what he gets from rowing. ~ Daniel James Brown

I used to enjoy all the white bands when I was a kid listening to the radio. But the record companies, they take music and label it - like, they say "rock". Because the white singers can't sound like James Brown, they call him "soul". They've been doing that for years. That's the prejudice crap. ~ Miles Davis

I invented rock & roll. Jimi Hendrix was my guitar player. James Brown was my vocalist. ~ Little Richard

I've got soul and I'm super bad. ~ James Brown

Tommy moved on. Lash, your people have been oppressed for hundreds of years. It's time to strike back. Look, you don't have your MBA yet - they haven't completely juiced you of your usefulness yet. Would Martin Luther King back down from this challenge? Malcolm X? James Brown? Don't you have a dream? Don't you feel good, like you knew that you would, now? ~ Christopher Moore

From the moment he stepped in the shell that afternoon, he felt at home. He liked the boys.He didn't know Gordy Adam and Don Hume well, but both made a point of welcoming him. His oldest most reliable shell house friend, Roger Morris, sitting up front in the bow, gave a wave and a shout, Hey Joe I see you finally found the right boat!" His buddies from Grand Coulee Chuck Day and Johnie White were sitting up front too. As he strapped in his shoes and began to lace up, Stub McMillin, his face alight said, This boat is going to fly now boys." Shorty Hunt slapped him on the back and whispered, I got your back Joe! ~ Daniel James Brown

Thank God for the journey. ~ James Brown

Sometimes, you like to let the hair do the talking! ~ James Brown

Psy is fantastic. He's shifted the planet. He's got the whole world dancing. And it's a rarity in this world. Only four people made that happen in history - James Brown, Michael Jackson, yours truly and Psy. ~ MC Hammer

Hurting was nothing new to him. ~ Daniel James Brown

Some like them fat, some like them tall, some like them short, skinny legs and all. I like them all. ~ James Brown

I was never really that interested in the punk movement. I was a blues guy: I liked Motown, James Brown. ~ Gary Oldman

James Brown opened at least six of our House of Blues clubs. He always delivered, but he demanded the respect of an emperor. But, come on, he's James Brown ! ... I got to play on stage with him. Did he ever fine me ? (Brown was known to fine players for flubbing notes or steps) - I would have loved to have been fined by James Brown ! ~ Dan Aykroyd

James Brown was my favorite, my absolute idol. Every time I played with him was like a music lesson, and I never thought I could be so funky! I mean, a white boy from Canada - a Jew - getting down with his funky bad self! ~ Paul Shaffer

You go through the Civil Rights struggle, everybody knew the songs - 'We shall overcome.' Everybody would sing it. Music helped us. James Brown, 'Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud.' They helped black people figure out how to navigate what was a very treacherous place in America for them. ~ Geoffrey Canada

He crashed a dozen Cadillacs in one year and played the Apollo. With racial hatred burning in the headlines, the audience danced in the seats to a white boy from the bottomland, backed by pickers who talked like Ernest Tubb. "James Brown kissed me on my cheek," he says. "Top that. ~ Rick Bragg

It doesn't matter how you travel it, it's the same road. It doesn't get any easier when you get bigger, it gets harder. And it will kill you if you let it. ~ James Brown

Sometimes I feel like I'm a preacher as well, 'cause I can really get into an audience. ~ James Brown

Competitive rowing is an undertaking of extraordinary beauty preceded by brutal punishment. Unlike most sports, which draw primarily on particular muscle groups, rowing makes heavy and repeated use of virtually every muscle in the body, despite the fact that a rower, as Al Ulbrickson liked to put it, "scrimmages on his posterior annex." And rowing makes these muscular demands not at odd intervals but in rapid sequence, over a protracted period of time, repeatedly and without respite. On one occasion, after watching the Washington freshmen practice, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Royal Brougham marveled at the relentlessness of the ~ Daniel James Brown

For goodness sake, look at those cakes. ~ James Brown

Cardiff Stadium was a warm up for the 3 Hyde Park shows. James Brown opened. And I think it may be the only time we played Mini Epic live. ~ Chad Smith

I only got a seventh-grade education, but I have a doctorate in funk, and I like to put that to good use ~ James Brown

It's bluesy, rocky jazz. I call it soul music, but it's not James Brown soul music. It comes from my soul. It comes from a deeper place. Duffy has that similar old school soul sound to herself. If I opened for Duffy, that would make sense to me, in my head. ~ Tinsel Korey

America ... Do not touch my TV, my DVD, my stereo, my dual-deck VCR. Do not touch my old school, my new school, my slow jams, my party jams, my happy rap, and you better not touch ... My James Brown. ~ Bernie Mac

I'm twice as old, but I feel good. ~ James Brown

You want a hero in the music world? James Brown. He brought a feeling to music without really using words. He's just famous for his sound. ~ David Lee Roth

You're like a dull knife, it just ain't cutting. ~ James Brown

I'm crazy about James Brown. I'm crazy about soul music. And then the blues. Rhythm and blues. ~ Bill Nighy

In '87, I used to do this awful, awful James Brown impression. ~ Wanda Sykes

I've never seen a performer create electricity with an audience like James Brown. He's got everybody in his hands and whatever he wants to do with them, he does it. It's amazing. I've always thought he was underrated. ~ Michael Jackson

I did the thing with bonds, which was about 30 million dollars, and didn't get none of the money on them. ~ James Brown

Neither is necessarily a better or more valuable oarsman than the other; both the long arms and the strong back are assets to the boat. But if they are to row well together, each of these oarsmen must adjust to the needs and capabilities of the other. Each must be prepared to compromise something in the way of optimizing his stroke for the overall benefit of the boat...Only in this way can the capabilities that come with diversity...be turned to advantage rather than disadvantage.
p179 ~ Daniel James Brown

You can't really dance properly to James Brown. If you dance to James Brown, you look like an idiot. There's a lot of jerking. ~ Sandra Bullock

Fortunately, I'm known as the hardest-working woman in showbiz, not to compete with James Brown. I've always been a multi-tasker. ~ Tamara Tunie

We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy ... It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong. ~ Robert James Brown

Every James Brown cut makes a party get crazy. He's the god of all music. I always play different wild remixes of his songs because people start bugging out when they realise what I'm playing. ~ Afrika Bambaataa

But the greatest paradox of the sport has to do with the psychological makeup of the people who pull the oars. Great oarsmen and oarswomen are necessarily made of conflicting stuff - of oil and water, fire and earth. On the one hand, they must possess enormous self-confidence, strong egos, and titanic willpower. They must be almost immune to frustration. Nobody who does not believe deeply in himself or herself - in his or her ability to endure hardship and to prevail over adversity - is likely even to attempt something as audacious as competitive rowing at the highest levels. The sport offers so many opportunities for suffering and so few opportunities for glory that only the most tenaciously self-reliant and self-motivated are likely to succeed at it. And yet, at the same time - and this is key - no other sport demands and rewards the complete abandonment of the self the way that rowing does. Great crews may have men or women of exceptional talent or strength; they may have outstanding coxswains or stroke oars or bowmen; but they have no stars. The team effort - the perfectly synchronized flow of muscle, oars, boat, and water; the single, whole, unified, and beautiful symphony that a crew in motion becomes - is all that matters. Not the individual, not the self. ~ Daniel James Brown

All these miseries seemed compounded into a single horrific moment one misty winter morning when she turned from the woodstove with an iron skillet full of hot bacon grease, potatoes, and onions and tripped over Harry Junior, who was lying on his back on the floor. She dropped the skillet and its contents directly onto the boy's neck and chest. She ~ Daniel James Brown

Got ants in my pants and I need to dance, so big fine mama, come give me a chance. ~ James Brown

We can never be like it was at Penn State with Joe Paterno. That was an anomaly in an of itself. ~ James Brown

There seemed to Joe to be some kind of connection between what he was doing here among a pile of freshly split shakes, whta Pocock was doing in his shop, and what he was trying to do himself in the racing shells Pocock built - something about the deliberate application of strength, the careful coordination of ind and muscle, the sudden unfolding of mystery and beauty. ~ Daniel James Brown

The white horse of heroin will ride you to hell. ~ James Brown

Then the coxswain called out, 'Ready all!' Joe turned and faced the rear of the boat, slid his seat forward, sank the white blade of his oar into the oil-black water, tensed his muscles, and waited for the command that would propel him forward into the glimmering darkness. ~ Daniel James Brown

Seattle's Hooverville Northwest of downtown, in the old Scandinavian neighborhood of Ballard, tugboats belching plumes of black smoke nosed long rafts of logs into the ~ Daniel James Brown

What everybody's looking for today, they're looking for escape-ism. ~ James Brown

Every good rowing coach, in his own way, imparts to his men the kind of self-discipline required to achieve the ultimate from mind, heart, and body. Which is why most ex-oarsmen will tell you they learned more fundamentally important lessons in the racing shell than in the classroom. ~ Daniel James Brown

Don't let nobody take care of your business better than you. ~ James Brown

I grew up in Deptford in south London, and at that time I used to wear toppers, loon pants and tonic suits from shops like Take 6 and Topman. I was a bit of a soul boy, but I had a very eclectic taste in music - I was into James Brown and Bowie; and I was the only kid in the neighbourhood who would also be listening to Chopin. ~ Gary Oldman

when you only eat natural foods, you are less likely to become addicted to sugar or fat. And because you won't be prone to sugar or fat addictions, it will be very hard to eat extra calories. ~ Walter James Brown

When you touch me, good God. ~ James Brown

Get on up, stay on the scene, get on up, like a sex machine. ~ James Brown

I think art can really serve to inspire a movement - and, of course, it has in the past. The Civil Rights movement wouldn't have the same resonance without the songs from everyone from Pete Seeger to Odetta to James Brown. ~ Saul Williams

Our immediate influence in b-boying was James Brown, point blank. ~ Crazy Legs

There are many influences in my music, not only blues. R&B, Motown, gospel, old timey, jazz, even classical are all part of what I do. I started with classical, then country, then blues, and after that I started listening heavily to Motown and gospel. My earliest efforts as a songwriter were soul. Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, Wilson Pickett, Gladys Knight, James Brown, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Fontella Bass are just a few of the names that come to mind as the God's of soul and Motown. ~ Rory Block

Great books inspire great minds. Great minds master many disciplines. The most difficult discipline to master is self discipline. ~ James Brown

James Brown and Frank Sinatra are two different quantities in the universe. They represent two different experiences of the world. ~ Amiri Baraka

When my woman kisses me I start dancing like James Brown. Ow! I Feel Good! ~ Godfrey

I'm coming from a Ginuwine and Usher background: slow and smooth songs. And that's why I really connected to Sam Cooke, because he was just very smooth. It's not like the James Brown types, which is all great stuff, but he was totally set apart from those guys. ~ Leon Bridges

Like Christ said, love thee one another. I learned to do that, and I learned to respect and be appreciative and thankful for what I had. ~ James Brown

It takes energy to get angry. It eats you up inside. I can't waste my energy like that and expect to get ahead. When they left, it took everything I had in me just to survive. Now I have to stay focused. I've just gotta take care of it myself' Joe Rantz ~ Daniel James Brown

I named my new son James Joseph Brown II. I think he's going to be a lot better than I was. ~ James Brown

I'd like to cut down on the work a little bit. ~ James Brown

But as a kid, I preferred the black side, and often wished that Mommy had sent me to black schools like my friends. Instead I was stuck at that white school, P.S. 138, with white classmates who were convinced I could dance like James Brown. They constantly badgered me to do the "James Brown" for them, a squiggling of the feet made famous by the "Godfather of Soul" himself, who back in the sixties was bigger than life. I tried to explain to them that I couldn't dance. I have always been one of the worst dancers that God has ever put upon this earth. ~ James McBride

Everybody over there, get on up. Everybody out there, get into it. Everybody right there, get involved. ~ James Brown

James Brown died owing me $50,000. But I loved James Brown. ~ Don King

Joe had never flown in an airplane, never seen a city from any higher vantage point than that afforded by his own six-foot-three frame. Now, standing on the observation deck, he looked out at the many spires of New York rising through a pall of smoke and steam and heat haze and did not know whether he found it beautiful or frightening.
He leaned over the low stone parapet and peered down at miniature cars and buses and swarms of tiny people scurrying along the streets. The city below him, Joe realized, murmured. The cacophony of honking horns and wailing sirens and rumbling streetcars that had as**saulted his ears at street level were reduced up here to something gentler and more soothing, like the sonorous breathing of an enormous living thing. It was a much bigger, more connected, world than he had ever thought possible. ~ Daniel James Brown

James Brown was one of the first artists who found four bars that he liked and played them the entire way through, and then he just added to it vocally. ~ Brian Austin Green

Pocock paused and stepped back from the frame of the shell and put his hands on his hips, carefully studying the work he had so far done. He said for him the craft of building a boat was like religion. It wasn't enough to master the technical details of it. You had to give yourself up to it spiritually; you had to surrender yourself absolutely to it. When you were done and walked away from the boat, you had to feel that you had left a piece of yourself behind in it forever, a bit of your heart. He turned to Joe. "Rowing," he said, "is like that. And a lot of life is like that too, the parts that really matter anyway. Do you know what I mean, Joe? ~ Daniel James Brown

All were merged into one smoothly working machine; they were, in fact, a poem of motion, a symphony of swinging blades. ~ Daniel James Brown

The exuberant Husky crew gingerly hoisted Walling out of the shell and sent him off to the hospital. Astonished fans and journalists gathered around them on the dock, peppering them with questions: Was the University of Washington in the District of Columbia? Where exactly was Seattle, anyway? Were any of them really lumberjacks? ~ Daniel James Brown

I used to think like Moses. That knocked me down for a couple years and put me in prison. Then I start thinking like Job. Job waited and became the wealthiest and richest man ever 'cause he believed in God. ~ James Brown

I was a James Brown junkie as a kid. ~ L.A. Reid

When all is said and done I think the story tells us that hope is the heroes domain, not the fools. Because we dare to hope, even when doing so might undo us. We leave the worlds we create behind us, swirling in our wakes, eternal and effervescent with the beauty of our aspirations. ~ Daniel James Brown

Once there the main man, the bearded preacher, bridles and jabs, spasms and gurns like a pre-ejaculatory James Brown. ~ Russell Brand

As Joe raised a hand to acknowledge the wave of applause rising to greet him, he found himself struggling desperately to keep back tears. He had never let himself dream of standing in a place like this, surrounded by people like these. It startled him but at the same time it also filled him with gratitude, and as he stood at the front of the room that day acknowledging the applause, he felt a sudden surge of something unfamiliar - a sense of pride that was deeper and more heartfelt than any he had ever felt before. Now it was on to Poughkeepsie again, and then maybe even Berlin. Everything finally seemed to be starting to turn golden. ~ Daniel James Brown

One night all the James Brown band was playing on stage and I look in the back and I could see Mick Jagger and Keith Richards trying to get in the club and they couldn't get in cause it was to crowded. ~ Tommy Chong

Physiologists, in fact, have calculated that rowing a two-thousand-meter race - the Olympic standard - takes the same physiological toll as playing two basketball games back-to-back. And it exacts that toll in about six minutes. A well-conditioned oarsman or oarswoman ~ Daniel James Brown

I lingered a bit longer. The tug of kinship held me there, bound me to the place and to a man I had never known, but without whom I would never have been. I conjured up his image one more time, and then laid back to rest. The late summer darkness drifted down from the sky like a warm mist, enveloping me and the graves before me,uniting us in its soft embrace. The world spun eastward beneath me, and the darkness deepened and spread over Hinckley, over Minnesota, over the American countryside, covering all of us in the same black shroud, tenants in common, tenants of time. ~ Daniel James Brown

Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all. ~ James Brown