I got put out of my church choir because my pastor said, 'We can't have baby sister singing the blues and coming in here and singing on Sunday morning.'

I remember working with Ray Charles when I was quite young, and I would wonder, 'Why would he sing 'Georgia On My Mind' and 'I Can't Stop Loving You' every night?' I said, 'Oh my God if I have to sing these songs, if I have to sing 'I Can't Stop Loving You' one more night, I'm going to fall out.' Of course, I was young and I didn't understand.

Back when I was working with the Stones and with Joe Cocker and Neil Young and Neil Diamond and all of those - 'the boys,' I call them - it was fun.

I was able to endure and play a special part in music history. And I always managed to keep working, even if I wasn't a big solo artist.

I think there are three kinds of songs; it's only my theory: psychological, emotional, and spiritual. When you write psychologically or intellectually, you have a tune in your mind, and you re-write it. It's an intellectual approach. The emotional is my favorite because it comes from my kishkas; it comes from my soul.

But the issue is not only life and death but our existence before God and our being judged by him. All of us were sinners before him and worthy of condemnation.

It is important to learn to understand in a historical text, a text from the past, the living Word of God, that is, to enter into prayer and thus read Sacred Scripture as a conversation with God.

Mars has long exerted a pull on the human imagination. The erratically moving red star in the sky was seen as sinister or violent by the ancients: The Greeks identified it with Ares, the god of war; the Babylonians named it after Nergal, god of the underworld. To the ancient Chinese, it was Ying-huo, the fire planet.