Top 60 Little Richard Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I am the innovator. I am the originator. I am the emancipator. I am the architect of rock ‘n’ roll!”

— Little Richard

2. “God is omnipotent, He is omniscient, and He is ever present.”

— Little Richard

3. “We’re gonna have some fun tonight.”

— Little Richard

4. “I thank God for Elvis Presley. I thank the Lord for sending Elvis to open the door so I could walk down the road...”

— Little Richard

5. “It was a way out of poverty. It was a way to success. It was a way to education. And it was a way to a brighter day for me.”

— Little Richard

6. “I thank God for making me a man.”

— Little Richard

7. “Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.”

— Little Richard

8. “It’s not the size of the ship; it’s the size of the waves.”

— Little Richard

9. “I think people who don’t believe in God are crazy. How can you say there is no God when you hear the birds singing these beautiful songs you didn’t make?”

— Little Richard

10. “Gay people are the sweetest, kindest, most artistic, warmest and most thoughtful people in the world. And since the beginning of time all they’ve ever been is kicked.”

— Little Richard

11. “But men are so full of greed today, they’ll sell anything for a little piece of money.”

— Little Richard

12. “I only wore makeup when I went onstage.”

— Little Richard

13. “But when I went on the stage to do a show, I would put on makeup because I felt that it enhanced my act; it drew attention to what I was doing.”

— Little Richard

14. “I also think that what’s wrong with all of us is that we don’t show enough love toward each other.”

— Little Richard

15. “I got a girl named Bony Maronie, she’s as skinny as a stick of macaroni.”

— Little Richard

16. “That’s what Tina Turner did, too – sang blues up-tempo – and they called it rock ‘n’ roll.”

— Little Richard

17. “Greed has taken the whole universe, and nobody is worried about their soul.”

— Little Richard

18. “Black people lived right by the railroad tracks, and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy, and I thought: I’m gonna make a song that sounds like that.”

— Little Richard

19. “And I’d like to give my love to everybody, and let them know that the grass may look greener on the other side, but believe me, it’s just as hard to cut.”

— Little Richard

20. “They shoulda called me Little Cocaine, I was sniffing so much of the stuff! My nose got big enough to back a diesel truck in, unload it, and drive it right out again.”

— Little Richard

21. “Rock ‘n’ roll doesn’t glorify God. You can’t drink out of God’s cup and the devil’s cup at the same time. I was one of the pioneers of that music, one of the builders. I know what the blocks are made of because I built them.”

— Little Richard

22. “I think God made a woman to be strong and not to be trampled under the feet of men. I’ve always felt this way because my mother was a very strong woman, without a husband.”

— Little Richard

23. “I decided to come back and teach goodness in this business. To teach love, because music is the universal language. We are God’s bouquet, and through music we become one.”

— Little Richard

24. “When you sit down and think about what rock ‘n’ roll music really is, then you have to change that question. Played up-tempo, you call it rock ‘n’ roll; at a regular tempo, you call it rhythm and blues.”

— Little Richard

25. “I don’t give the devil credit for creating nothing.”

— Little Richard

26. “I love God, and I’m a follower.”

— Little Richard

27. “I try to be a guide for people, to make their darkness bright and to make the pathway light, and never to condemn or control or criticize.”

— Little Richard

28. “And I don’t get down on nobody else for doing whatever else they do. To each his own.”

— Little Richard

29. “I just want the world to know that God is present, that he’s alive for ever more.”

— Little Richard

30. “I’m very much a gentleman in what I do.”

— Little Richard

31. “I did what I felt, and I felt what I did, at all costs.”

— Little Richard

32. “I think they saw me as something like a deliverer, a way out. My means of expression, my music, was a way in which a lot of people wished they could express themselves and couldn’t.”

— Little Richard

33. “I don’t think that you have to be effeminate to be sensitive.”

— Little Richard

34. “I would wear flamboyant clothes and long hair, and most singers at the time didn’t.”

— Little Richard

35. “A-bop-bop-a-loom-op-a-lop-bop-boom.”

— Little Richard

36. “Plus I love Tanya Tucker and I love country music.”

— Little Richard

37. “Rock ‘n’ roll offered me a platform to speak what I felt. It also offered me a platform to support my mama and my brothers and sisters – twelve children.”

— Little Richard

38. “I got fame and fortune, and I lost my sense of reasoning.”

— Little Richard

39. “God gives us the ability, but rock ‘n’ roll was created by men.”

— Little Richard

40. “I also like the banging piano – that old good-time piano.”

— Little Richard

41. “I was really kind of shy as a child. But I would do things for attention.”

— Little Richard

42. “I saw Uncle John with Long Tall Sally, he saw Aunt Mary coming and he ducked back in the alley.”

— Little Richard

43. “And I think a woman should find it a joy to be female because God made both male and female.”

— Little Richard

44. “Now they have banging guitar and no bass and call it rock, but that’s not what I call rock.”

— Little Richard

45. “I gave up rock ‘n’ roll for the rock of ages! I used to be a glaring homosexual until God changed me!”

— Little Richard

46. “I tried to look presentable for a show, but not for sexual attraction. It was strictly for show business.”

— Little Richard

47. “I came from a family where my people didn’t like rhythm and blues. Bing Crosby – “Pennies from Heaven” – Ella Fitzgerald, was all I heard.”

— Little Richard

48. “Like, my mother would have company over, and I would sing so they’d pay attention to me.”

— Little Richard

49. “I don’t think a woman has to act like a man to show that she has strength.”

— Little Richard

50. “But I was singing loud, and most singers weren’t singing loud.”

— Little Richard