Sharon Jones

“I never got to meet Michael Jackson, and he's gone - so to be on stage with Prince was like if Michael... you know what I'm saying? And Prince, he's just such a warmhearted guy. He's so humble. He's such a spiritual man. I like his style.”

“For me, music is my joy. It's my happiness. As long as this medicine, this chemo is in my body, I didn't have my love, my joy.”

“I'd love to get into one of Tyler Perry's movies - play a little role, have a little character. I don't care. But more than two lines! More than two words!”

“The only thing I wanted to accomplish was to finally get recognized by the music industry. If you know the awards, answer me this question: Do you see an award for soul music? No. They have R&B, funk, hip-hop and all sorts of contemporary things.”

“Once I retire and slow down, I don't want to be in New York. I want to be somewhere near a lake or a pond, so that on my days when I have nothing to do, I can go fishing.”

“I'm telling the story, and if I can't tell the story, I'm not going to sing it. And if I don't agree with the story, and if I got to sing something that portrays me as something I'm not, then I'm not going to sing it either. I didn't even want to sing Aretha Franklin's 'Chain of Fools.'”

“In Rikers, you had the Italians over here, the Spanish over here, the Blacks here, then there would be your Christians here and your Muslim brotherhood here. It's just like the outside, but in very closed quarters where you have to get along or else. The sense of claustrophobia in 'Orange is the New Black' - that's real.”

“I love the smaller clubs. I love the theaters. I love the festivals. There are things I don't like. At certain theaters, people can't get up and dance.”

“People buy my albums, and I love my albums when I do them because we try to record live with that same energy, but I can never get the energy that I have when I'm live.”

“A lot of people call me gay because they don't see me with anyone.”

“I think I bring the songs that aren't about me or related to me to life. It's like the song 'How Do I Let A Good Man Down?' Let me tell you, I didn't write that song - because if I have a good man, I ain't going to let him down.”

“I was onstage one night and was singing. I hit one note, and I just doubled over. It was like being punched hard in the back. I couldn't put my back up on the plane seat because of the pain. I got massages, thinking it was muscle spasms. The doctor told me at the time that it was my pancreas. I didn't even know.”

“Me and the Dap-Kings, the whole band is playing a wedding band in 'The Wolf of Wall Street.'”

“When I first played at the Apollo, the owner didn't even know who Sharon Jones was. The Apollo had never seen so many white people coming uptown.”

“I sing this song in church - 'I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me.' I got a feeling that all these shows, all this everything, is part of my blessing. And in my heart, I know I'm going to do every show, and everything is going to be OK.”

“I miss my hair, but I feel like going out there with some fake braids wouldn't be right. I want to be the most genuine performer I can be.”

“As for meat, I'm not going to become vegetarian. I'm telling you that right now. I want me a steak. I want me a pork chop. I want me a lamb chop, even a piece of duck every once in awhile. We used to have ham and salami, all that crazy stuff. I can't eat processed food. I've got to find local farmers and get natural foods.”

“At first, they told me it was just bile-duct cancer, but once they went in, they removed the gallbladder, the head of my pancreas, and a foot-and-a-half of my small intestine, and built me another bile duct and connected it to my stomach. It turned out to be pancreatic cancer, stage two, so, very aggressive.”

“I feel like this: When you call me in to do something with you, you must want me to do soul-singing. Because you know I'm a soul singer. Don't ask me to come in and rap. And don't ask me to come in and sing pop.”

“Phish is such a good band; they just make stuff up as a jam band.”