Mahalia Jackson Quotes

Sincere composers believe in God.

Particularly with the blues, it's not just about bad times. It's about the healing spirit.

Since I was two years old, all I knew was gospel music. That music became such a part of my life it was as natural as dancing. A way to escape from the problems. And my way of release.

Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.

When we sing, our hearts can lift and fly, over the troubled waters and over the years.

My heart is still there in gospel music. It never left . . . I'm gonna make a gospel record and tell Jesus I cannot bear these burdens alone.

The Spirit of God first imparts love; He next inspires hope, and then gives liberty; and that is about the last thing we have in a good many of our churches at the present time.

We believe faith and freedom must be our guiding stars, for they show us truth, they make us brave, give us hope, and leave us wiser than we were.

You have to be as light as you can be and not get weighed down and stuck in your emotion, stuck in your body, stuck in your head. You just want to always be trying to elevate somehow.

The only way to heal the pain which will not heal itself is to forgive the person who hurt you. Forgiveness heals the memory's vision. ... You set a prisoner free, but you discover the real prisoner was yourself.

To forgive is to unlock the cage of another's folly to set ourselves free.

Now I'm free of him and I'm light as a feather. There's no weight holding me down; I'm ready to spread my wings and fly.

Being where I'm at, standing in these shoes, it feels amazing. It feels like a weight has been lifted.

Surrender your whole being to a note, and gravity disappears...wi th one chord

The weight is off my shoulders. I don't live in the past anymore. I look forward, instead of back.

With inquiry, every painful story unravels. Freedom is possible in every moment.

Music and religion are as intimately related as poetry and love; the deepest emotions require for their civilized expression the most emotional of arts.

A certain giving up of control is good for the soul.

I've learned that forgiving is one of the greatest gifts that I can give myself.

Music is the only religion that delivers the goods.

If we are a people who pray, darkness is apt to be a lot of what our prayers are about. If we are people who do not pray, it is apt to be darkness in one form or another that has stopped our mouths.

What needs to be discharged is the intolerable tenderness of the past, the past gone and grieved over and never made sense of. Music ransoms us from the past, declares an amnesty, brackets and sets aside the old puzzles. Sing a new song. Start a new life, get a girl, look into her shadowy eyes, smile.

In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.

That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues.