Quotes by Mahalia Jackson

• How can you sing of amazing grace and all God's wonders without using your hands?
• It is easy to be independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you haven't got a thing, that's the Lord's test.
• If you want me to sing this Christmas song with the feeling and the meaning, you better see if you can locate that check.
• If you believe in God, He will open the windows of heaven and pour blessings upon you.
• I'll come to any benefit if I see SCLC get all the money.
• I hope to bring people to God with my songs.
• I don't worry too much about the script, I just ad lib, like Pearl Bailey.
• Anybody that sings the blues is in a deep pit, yelling for help.
• Baby, black promoters oppressed me before white promoters ever got hold of me. Don't talk skin to me.
• Time is important to me because I want to sing long enough to leave a message. I'm used to singing in churches where nobody would dare stop me until the Lord arrives!
• Gospel music rhythms are not African in origin, although I know that's what the jazz experts say.
• God can make you anything you want to be, but you have to put everything in his hands.
• Faith and prayer are the vitamins of the soul; man cannot live in health without them.
• Everybody needs somebody.
• Do you know most of the Jewish songs have the same trend of sadness as Negro spirituals?
• Blues are the songs of despair, but gospel songs are the songs of hope.
• Money just draws flies.
• I close my eyes when I sing so I can feel the song better.
• This is the place to see the stars - Hollywood Bowl.
• Anybody singing the blues is in a deep pit yelling for help.
• You're blessed if you have the strength to work.
• Without a song, each day would be a century.
• They thought I was a success as soon as I started paying the bills.
• When you are through with the blues, you've got nothing to rest on.
• My hands, my feet, I throw my whole body to say all that is within me.
• The trouble with records is that they're too short.
• The old Devil gets mad when you're trying to do good. Pray that God will move the stumbling blocks.
• The mind and the voice by themselves are not sufficient.
• The Lord doesn't like us to be dead. Be alive. Sometimes I dance to the glory of the Lord, because He said so.
• Sometimes you ask God for something and you don't know what you're asking.
• Put your mind on the gospel. And remember - there's one God for all.
• One thing about playing the real jazz is that you can't count it.
• When you sing gospel you have a feeling there is a cure for what's wrong.