Mavis Staples Quotes

The cool thing about the smaller gigs - it's the intimacy. You really feel connected to the crowd.

The best thing is being really close. The worst thing is being really close.

If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you.

There's nothing like the energy in a small comedy club room or a small theater when it's going really well. I can see everybody's face practically in the whole room. There's no cameras in the way, and it's just me.

I think if a personal connection seems far off, I have to work and find a way to bring it closer to me, or I don't feel grounded.

Let me tell you, 10,000 is an intimate room. Believe me. I want to be able to connect to everybody in the room, and you can't with a venue any bigger than that.

You can't manufacture the feeling of being in a small crowd and connecting on every single level to the very last person in the very last row in the back. I think when you evolve into a headlining act and things get bigger, the intimacy and some of that energy gets lost a little bit.

I used to be a big arena person. I thought more people equaled more intensity, but smaller places are a lot more intimate, I feel more connected with the audience.

Love is closeness.

It's nice to be in a smaller room. I like the big arenas as well, but at my core, I'm a live performer, so it's nice to be able to feel the warmth of everybody in the room.

I prefer to play in smaller venues because I like the intimacy, the connection with the audience.

All of living is nothing but a fervid attempt to move closer together.

You want to attach emotionally.

I'm for turning off the tube and turning down the light, cause I'm for nothing else but me and you tonight.

As we get deeper, we move closer and closer to other people; we feel closer to life as a whole.

Our shadows, now parallel, now close together and joined, traced an exquisite pattern at our feet.

They all dreamt of each other that night, as was natural, considering how thin the partitions were between them, and how strangely they had been lifted off the earth to sit next each other in mid-ocean, and see every detail of each others' faces, and hear whatever they chanced to say.

And as we drift into sleep, I feel something I’ve never felt before. A closeness that isn’t merely physical. A connection that defies the fact that we’ve only just met. A sensation that can only come from the most euphoric of feelings: belonging.

Friends share secrets. That's what keeps us close.

He closed his eyes as she put her hand on his shoulder, and in that instant, nothing else mattered. Not the song, not the place, not the other couples around him. Only this, only her. He gave himself over to the feel of her body as it pressed against him, and they moved slowly in small circles on the sawdust-strewn floor, lost in a world that felt as though it had been created for just the two of them.

Every show, every audience is different, and I just love leaving the venue feeling like we all know each other a little bit better.

I want you to stay. I never want there to be a time when we don't share space.

As love is union, it knows no extremes of distance.

You're here, and the only dance I want is this one.

I can sit underneath the shed with all my family, my cousins, and everything, and just be like, "Yeah, this is what it's about - just sitting with people you love and hanging out."