Top 50 Aretha Franklin Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.”

— Aretha Franklin

2. “If you disrespect everybody that you run into, how in the world do you think everybody’s supposed to respect you?”

— Aretha Franklin

3. “We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It’s our basic human right.”

— Aretha Franklin

4. “Be your own artist, and always be confident in what youre doing. If youre not going to be confident, you might as well not be doing it.”

— Aretha Franklin

5. “Being the Queen is not all about singing, and being a diva is not all about singing. It has much to do with your service to people. And your social contributions to your community and your civic contributions as well.”

— Aretha Franklin

6. “Trying to grow up is hurting. You make mistakes. You try to learn from them, and when you don’t, it hurts even more.”

— Aretha Franklin

7. “Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It’s transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, years back, to the very moment certain things happened in your life. It’s uplifting, it’s encouraging, it’s strengthening.”

— Aretha Franklin

8. “Soul is a constant. It’s cultural. It’s always going to be there, in different flavors and degrees.”

— Aretha Franklin

9. “It’s the rough side of the mountain that’s the easiest to climb; the smooth side doesn’t have anything for you to hang on to.”

— Aretha Franklin

10. “The milk of kindness flows through my body, I shall follow Jesus to the Taco Bell and give thanks.”

— Aretha Franklin

11. “Women have broken through the glass ceiling, and they’re now more and more in the power seats.”

— Aretha Franklin

12. “You’re a no good heartbreaker, you’re a liar, and you’re a cheat. I don’t know why I let you do these things to me.”

— Aretha Franklin

13. “I think the hardest thing is losing weight. That’s the hardest thing more than anything else.”

— Aretha Franklin

14. “Gospel goes with me wherever I go. Gospel is a constant with me.”

— Aretha Franklin

15. “Judy Garland is a singer with a capital S. And talk about soul. This woman was soul personified. Judy Garland is a class by herself.”

— Aretha Franklin

16. “Music changes, and I’m gonna change right along with it.”

— Aretha Franklin

17. “Being a singer is a natural gift. It means I’m using to the highest degree possible the gift that god gave me to use. I’m happy with that.”

— Aretha Franklin

18. “Better friends than lovers. Sugar can’t you see? You need you and I really need me.”

— Aretha Franklin

19. “I sing to the realists; people who accept it like it is.”

— Aretha Franklin

20. “My faith always has been and always will be important to me.”

— Aretha Franklin

21. “People really don’t have to give you anything, so appreciate what people give you. And just don’t let that go to your head, whatever it is they give you.”

— Aretha Franklin

22. “I love to sing. It’s just a natural thing for me.”

— Aretha Franklin

23. “When God loves you, what can be better than that?”

— Aretha Franklin

24. “I love ‘Anne of Green Gables.’ I have for years. That’s one of my favourite things. She’s such a can-do kind of girl; that’s why I’m crazy about her.”

— Aretha Franklin

25. “I was in my dad’s church, his Baptist church, and I think the first song I ever performed was ‘Jesus Be a Fence Around Me.’”

— Aretha Franklin

26. “Now, occasionally I will still have that quarter pounder because I love fast food, but you have to keep it to a minimum.”

— Aretha Franklin

27. “Parents have to really talk to their children before they leave home.”

— Aretha Franklin

28. “You cannot define a person on just one thing. You can’t just forget all these wonderful and good things that a person has done because one thing didn’t come off the way you thought it should come off.”

— Aretha Franklin

29. “I love producing, writing. I rarely write with other writers unless I have a real great respect for them. Like Burt Bacharach, or Carole Sager, or Stevie Wonder. Somebody like Smokey – like that. Otherwise, I choose to write alone.”

— Aretha Franklin

30. “I like Beyonce’s music – some of it, not all of it.”

— Aretha Franklin

31. “Call in the Caped Crusader, Green Hornet, Kato, too. I’m in so much trouble I don’t know what to do.”

— Aretha Franklin

32. “Falling out of love is like losing weight. It’s a lot easier putting it on than taking it off.”

— Aretha Franklin

33. “The man who gets me is getting one hell of a woman.”

— Aretha Franklin

34. “I donate heavily to the church and various churches in the Detroit community and food banks.”

— Aretha Franklin

35. “On the sly, scoping for love.”

— Aretha Franklin

36. “I’ve been around long enough for people to know who I am and what my contributions are. They know me as more than just an artist. I think they know me as a woman as well.”

— Aretha Franklin

37. “I don’t feel one’s personal medical condition is everybody’s business. It just isn’t something you advertise, and it’s not open to discussion.”

— Aretha Franklin

38. “Yes, I’ve always been fashion conscious.”

— Aretha Franklin

39. “Politics are not my arena. Music is.”

— Aretha Franklin

40. “I’m the lady next door when I’m not on stage.”

— Aretha Franklin

41. “I’m a big woman. I need big hair.”

— Aretha Franklin

42. “If a song’s about something I’ve experienced or that could’ve happened to me it’s good. But if it’s alien to me, I couldn’t lend anything to it. Because that’s what soul is all about.”

— Aretha Franklin

43. “And I’ve been hurt hurt bad. I might be just twenty-six, but I’m an old woman in disguise twenty-six goin’on sixty-five.”

— Aretha Franklin

44. “And I was booked once to go on ‘Ed Sullivan’ and I got bumped and ran out the back door crying.”

— Aretha Franklin

45. “Don’t say Aretha is making a comeback, because I’ve never been away!”

— Aretha Franklin

46. “Clark Terry is an American Master. I love to listen to him, particularly ‘Mumbles.’ I was so delighted when we received degrees together, along with Edward Kennedy, at the New England Conservatory in 1997.”

— Aretha Franklin

47. “I saw the Supremes when they were still singing in little black skirts and white blouses.”

— Aretha Franklin

48. “I’ve never recorded anything I didn’t like.”

— Aretha Franklin

49. “I know people I feel are extremely talented, but I don’t know that I’ve ever heard any geniuses.”

— Aretha Franklin

50. “I’m never tired of going to the studio. I enjoy recording and documenting everything and trying new things.”

— Aretha Franklin