Barry White Quotations

I quit high school on my birthday. It was my senior year and I didn't see the point. This was 1962, and I was ready to make music.

When I saw corruption, I was forced to find truth on my own. I couldn't swallow the hypocrisy.

I kept my babies fed. I could have dumped them, but I didn't. I decided that whatever trip I was on, they were going with me. You're looking at a real daddy.

I try to tell a story musically in a song.

I'll come to you with gifts of knowledge, wisdom and truth.

Mama tried to save us from the streets, but the streets were too strong.

There's people making babies to my music. That's nice.

People are always looking for me to be a freak, weird.

Disco deserved a better name, a beautiful name because it was a beautiful art form. It made the consumer beautiful. The consumer was the star.

When I commit, I commit with my whole heart, my whole being. I know the Bible like the back of my hand.

One preacher turned me on, another turned me off.

We forget that this music, music made by my brothers and sisters, is still a baby. It's just beginning. When I think of the possibilities, it makes me smile.

I went to jail at 16 for stealing tires off Cadillacs. When I got out I said, Never again.

The whole system of society tells you what to do.

I've always loved War's Low Rider and Sly Stone's Thank You, and I just wanted to put my take on them.

Most families had four, five brothers. But because it was just me and Darryl, we had to be twice as strong.

The cops picked me up for attempted murder. I can still see the detectives, licking their chops. Thought they had me. Two weeks later, the cat came out of a coma and told the truth. I was innocent.

I don't know if it's my music, my lyrics, my sound, and knowing the music business the way I do-all I can say is, my career has lasted way longer than I expected.

Elton John's opinion turned the label's opinion around, all in a day.

As a boy, I believed freedom for America meant freedom for me. There was a time I believed every word spoken.

We were ready to launch Barry White, but the record company wouldn't put it out. Said it wouldn't sell.

No one could understand the bond between me and my brother. I struggled to understand the forces that drove his soul in one direction and mine in another.

Everyone to me has to pick a subject to talk about in music if you're going to be a writer.

In my day, we didn't have the cocaine, so we went out and knocked somebody over the head and took the money. But today, all this cocaine and crack, it doesn't give kids a chance.

I woke up one morning, went downstairs, said 'Good morning' to my mother and nearly scared both of us to death.'

I never learned to read or write music. Never wanted to fool with scales. That was boring, forced. The music I heard was free - flowing.

Leave me alone. I'm fine.

I didn't mind working in the clubs, but I resented it being a club where pimps hang out. Because the music that I create is of a higher intellect than that. It not only encompasses pimps, but whores, ballplayers, executives... everybody.

If you were a young kid, 19, 20 years old who has two children and a third one on the way and refuses to leave them. A kid who was on welfare, because he refused to steal anybody's property or take anybody's money. You found life a lot tougher.

I woke up when I was 14 and went to speak to my mother and scared us both to death.

All I had was the will and the love for music. I couldn't read music or write it. No connections, no car, no money, no bankroll, no clothes, no nothing.

There's a time when people give their words to each other it has to mean something. I'm a street cat. I've belonged in gangs and when you had a partner, you went down with your partner whether you won the fight or lost it. You went down together.

Been making love for hours and, baby, we're still going strong. Girl, this night is ours and I swear I feel it coming on. All I know is when we get through, I ain't going to be able to move.

Blacks own so little of the music business, it's pathetic. But I see that changing soon. Black artists, black businessmen and women will unite.

I don't know if it's my music, my lyrics, my sound and knowing the music business the way I do - all I can say is, my career has lasted way longer than I expected.

I'm very happy with this new record. It's dealing with different aspects of love-it's me making a statement about people doing something with their lives. It is about caring for others.

I'm so thankful that your mine, your sweetness is my weakness.

I'm never gonna quit, cause quitting' just ain't my schtick.

When a man's making love, the last thing he thinks about is war.

The women used the music to get their men to relate to them better: "talk to me, tell me what's on your mind." Men used the music to get the girls in the mood to make love. So either way you had it, Barry White is the one artist who actually was in your bedroom with you at your most sacred, sensuous moment of your life.

It's ecstasy when you're laying down next to me.

We are all gods, all forces of nature. We can destroy, we can build. We are like oceans and like fires.

Take it off, baby, take it all off. I want you the way you came into the world.

You're the first, the last, and my everything and the answer to all my dreams. You're my sun, my moon, my guiding star, my kind of wonderful, that's what you are

Blacks own so little of the music business it's pathetic. But I see that changing soon. Black artists, black businessmen and women will unite.

I started fooling around with the intro to one of the songs. Then another song, and another. I was so excited when I went into the studio.

After reading the book, I hope young people will see how I changed my life and how it's up to them to make changes in their own lives to succeed.

The biggest problem I had was remembering accurately. The book is about the lessons I've learned, things I went through and endured.

I'm very happy with this new record. It's dealing with different aspects of love-it's me making a statement about people doing something with their lives. It is about caring for others.

I listened to my accountants and lawyers. I signed the contract and put the advance in the bank, but inside my heart I felt something was wrong.