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Tina Turner

American-born Swiss singer and songwriter (1939–2023)

Anna Mae Bullock (26 November 1939 – 24 May 2023) known by her stage name Tina Turner, was a singer, dancer, actress, and author, whose career spanned more than half a century, earning her widespread recognition and numerous awards. Born and raised in the American South, she was also a Swiss citizen.

We are all born with a mission, a purpose, that only we can fulfill.
When you live with a joyful sense of purpose, when you infuse your life with a greater purpose beyond your individual self, every aspect of your karma can become a brilliant facet of your mission. You can transform sorrow and adversity of any sort into joy, stability, health, and prosperity. By changing poison into medicine and accomplishing your inner revolution, you can use every experience of karma to encourage others who suffer from the same problems that you overcame.

Quotes

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We are linked by a shared responsibility: to help our human family grow kinder and happier.

1980s

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  • As the first Black woman to fill a football stadium. That is a wish of mine. It hasn't been done. Janis Joplin did it for the White girls. I want to do it for the Blacks.
    • Her answer to the question how she would like to be remembered, "TINA TURNER Tells How She Made It To The Top Alone", Jet (1 April 1985), pp. 63–64, online at Google Books

I, Tina (1986)

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If you are unhappy with anything — your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, your job, your boss, your car — whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.
I, Tina: My Life Story (1986); co-written with Kurt Loder
  • I didn't have anybody, really, no foundation in life, so I had to make my own way. Always. From the start. I had to go out in the world and become strong, to discover my mission in life.
    • p. 10
  • If you are unhappy with anything — your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, your job, your boss, your car — whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.
    • p. 199
  • I will never give in to old age until I become old. And I am not old yet!
    • p. 202

1990s

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  • Well, it was a church person in the early days, Mahalia Jackson. And Rosetta Tharpe. These spiritual, very strong voices. I only knew that they were figures in the black race, recognizable and respected. But I must admit, I've always covered the songs of males. I haven't followed up on women or listened to that much women's music.
    • Her answer to a question about her first musical influences, Gerri Hershey, "Tina Turner", Rolling Stone (November 13, 1997), as quoted in Mark Bego, Tina Turner: Break Every Rule (Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003), p. 18

2000s

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I am strong, I lived through a divorce, separation from my family, all kinds of hell. I never let it break me down. I'm not an alcoholic, I've never smoked, I've never done drugs. I've floated through the disaster of my past clean.
  • I like me very much. When I look in the mirror and my skin glows back at me, I think, "Wow, that sure is pretty." I have a simple, childlike view of life, and I want to keep it. That's why I never got into that Beverly Hills world. So many pretentious people. They just aren't real.
  • My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself. I don't use special creams or treatments – I'll use a little bit of everything. It's a mistake to think you are what you put on yourself. I believe that a lot of how you look is to do with how you feel about yourself and your life.

2010s

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  • People think my life has been tough but I think it's been a wonderful journey. The older you get, the more you realise it's not what happens, it's how you deal with it.
    • As quoted in "TINA TURNER" by Michelle Davies, Marie Claire South Africa (May 2018), p. 125

My Love Story (2018/19)

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Tina Turner with Deborah Davis and Dominik Wichmann, My Love Story: The Autobiography (2019)
  • There's always been an emotion in my voice because it reached back to the life I was living. Where there were tears on stage, it wasn't Hollywood, it was real.
    • Motto
  • Someone once asked me about the relationship between singing and chanting. I explained that chanting is not necessarily like singing a song, rather it's that moment when you find yourself making sounds from within – from your heart, from your spirit. Each person has a song inside. That is something I learned over time. You can find the hum inside of you that can give you peace when you are really down.
    • p. 105
  • I never said, "Well, I don't have this and I don't have that." I said, "I don't have this yet, but I'm going to get it." The way I was thinking, I was choreographing my own life, figuring out which steps to take and, more importantly, picking the right time to take them.
    • p. 137
  • You have to be someone large on stage, not who you are in your everyday life. When I was performing, I believed that every song told a story, which I expressed through singing and movement. My audience wanted theater, and that's what we gave them. You start out not knowing who they are, or how active they will be, but you want to impress them. If they were quiet and they didn't move, then we had to work together, me, the girls, and the band, to pull them in and show them how to have a good time.
    • p. 192
  • My wildest dream was to have this kind of success – to pack a stadium, to walk out on a stage and look at the crowd, knowing that they came to see me. What a wonderful turn my life had taken. After so much unhappiness, after thinking that love of any kind would never be a part of my story, love was all around me.
    • pp. 195–96
  • Let me say this carefully, because I don't want anyone to take it the wrong way, but after working so hard for so many years, I was ready to stop. This was the moment to do it because I wanted to finish with my fans remembering me at my best.
    • p. 223
  • My longest love affair has been with my audience.
    • p. 273

2020s

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My Buddhist faith has been the foundation of my personal path toward revolution. But you don’t have to be a Buddhist to benefit from these principles.
  • It hurts to have to remember those times, but at a certain stage forgiveness takes over. Forgiving means not to hold on. You let it go, because it only hurts you. Not forgiving, you suffer, 'cause you think about it over and over again. And for what? I had an abusive life, there's no other way to tell the story, it's a reality, it's a truth. That's what you've got. So you have to accept it.

Happiness Becomes You (2020)

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The Lotus Sutra’s ancient wisdom belongs to all humanity, proclaiming that each person equally possesses the Buddha nature, with infinite potential and inherent dignity, lighting the way to true independence and absolute happiness for everyone.
Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good (2020); co-written with Taro Gold
  • Spirituality isn’t tied to any one religion or philosophy. It isn’t the property of a priesthood or clergy. Spirituality is a personal awakening and relationship with our Mother Earth and the universe that increases openness and positivity.
    My awakening began five decades ago through my practice and study of Buddhist teachings. Sharing the story of this most precious part of my life with you is a long-cherished dream. This book carries my personal guidance on how to create lasting happiness. It explains spiritual truths I’ve learned on my unlikely path to joy, from childhood to today.
    • Introduction
  • Each of us is born, I believe, with a unique mission, a purpose in life that only we can fulfill. We are linked by a shared responsibility: to help our human family grow kinder and happier.
    I first learned about the workings of the universe from my daily experiences growing up in Nutbush, Tennessee, a small rural town. I loved spending time outside, running through the fields, looking up at the heavenly bodies in the sky, spending time with animals—domestic and wild ones—and listening to the sounds of nature.
    Even as a little girl, I sensed an unseen universal force as I walked through the wide-open pastures each day. Communing with nature taught me to trust my intuition, which always seemed to know the way home when I was lost, the best branch on a tree for swinging, or where a treacherous rock was hidden in a stream.
    I learned to listen to my heart, which taught me that you and I are connected to each other and everything else on this planet. We are joined together by the mysterious nature of life itself, the fundamental creative energy of the universe.
    In this complicated world of ours, where contradictions abound, we find breathtaking beauty in the most unlikely places. The brightest rainbows appear after the heaviest of storm clouds. Magnificent butterflies emerge from the drabbest cocoons. And the most beautiful lotus flowers bloom from the deepest and thickest mud.
    Why do you suppose life works this way?
    Perhaps those rainbows, butterflies, and lotus flowers are meant to remind us that our world is a mystical work of art—a universal canvas upon which we all paint our stories, day by day, through the brushstrokes of our thoughts, words, and deeds.
    • Ch. 1 : Nature's Welcome
  • No matter where you’re born or who your parents are, it seems to me that we all start out with a mixture of circumstances, with both darkness and light. Some of us experience more of one than the other. And I believe there is an inextricable link between us and our ancestors, that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.
    If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that encountering adversity, as I have, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s what we make of it, how we use it to shape ourselves and our futures, that ultimately determines our success and happiness.
    • Ch. 1 : Nature's Welcome
  • I had witnessed the circle of life and death in nature, where plants and animals came and went in their own time. And I had heard about deaths in our community, young and old people, dying in all sorts of circumstances. But this time it was very personal.
    After Margaret died, there was a lot of talk about God's will. Our community was deeply Baptist, after all, and that was a natural response to the sudden tragedy that killed her and a few other young people, including my half sister Evelyn (my mother's child from a previous relationship). Thinking about the mysteries of life and death, I didn’t have a problem with the concept of an underlying universal force. But the idea of a bearded old white man in space, monitoring activities here on Earth, felt unrelatable and just plain unreal.
    I couldn't verbalize my own vision of God then, as the vocabulary hadn't come to me yet. But from the youngest age I can recall, I knew I could experience "Godliness" in Mother Nature. Something told me I had a piece of God in my heart, even if the traditional beliefs of my family and the way they practiced religion weren't right for me. I wished they practiced what they preached and lived more positive lives.
    • Ch. 1 : Nature's Welcome
  • The challenges we face in life can come from outside ourselves, or they can come from within.
    I know from personal experience that there are sometimes negative voices in your head, and they can be dangerous. These voices may say you’re too old, too young, too gay, too straight, too thin, too fat, too this, too that. The voices may tell you it’s too late for your dreams, or that no one will love you. They may tell you all sorts of lies to keep you trapped in unhealthy cycles of self-doubt.
    Maybe you've allowed your negative voices to undermine your self-esteem, to hinder your work, or to keep you locked in unhealthy relationships. If so, it's time to tell those voices you've heard their propaganda, and you're not going to take it anymore. Dismiss them, and you will be the only one holding the pen as you write the story of your life.
    • Ch. 4 : Stand up for your Life
  • Imagination, visualizing, and dreaming big, combined with hard work, determination, and faith, are what got me where I wanted to go, and they can do the same for you.
    If you ever find your resolve melting away, tell yourself, “This time I’ll do it! This time I’ll win!” As long as you keep moving forward, despite any disappointments and setbacks, you will be on the path to victory.
    I’ve observed people who veered from the path of self-improvement, having been swayed by short-term outlooks, failures, or by the opinions of others. In every case, their life condition suffered. Thankfully, I’ve known many more people who strived to improve themselves and work for the greater good. Invariably, their lives became more fulfilling.
    It boils down to a matter of choices—making thoughtful decisions toward improvement, for yourself and for others—and the intention behind those choices. At every moment, we always have a choice, even if it feels as if we don’t. Sometimes that choice may simply be to think a more positive thought.
    Remember that cultivating the deepest dimension of yourself, your inward journey, is always the most direct path to happiness.
    So, let’s rev up our humanity, and rev up our lives. Think of the rev in the word revolution as meaning you have the opportunity to accelerate the speed of your human revolution and rev it up. I know you’ll be happy you did.
    • Ch. 6 : A Revolution of the Heart
  • My Buddhist faith has been the foundation of my personal path toward revolution. But you don’t have to be a Buddhist to benefit from these principles.
    In fact, you don’t have to be a Buddhist to be a Buddha. As Daisaku Ikeda says, "When we realize that our lives are one with the great and eternal life of the universe, we are the Buddha. The purpose of Buddhism is to enable all people to come to this realization."
    This mind-set is open to everyone, regardless of religion or cultural background.
    The Lotus Sutra’s ancient wisdom belongs to all humanity, proclaiming that each person equally possesses the Buddha nature, with infinite potential and inherent dignity, lighting the way to true independence and absolute happiness for everyone.
    • Ch. 6 : A Revolution of the Heart
  • I like reading the comments on my online accounts as much as anyone. But I also know there is a lot of toxicity online, and many people aren’t as kind to others in the virtual world as my fans are to me.
    Commonplace distortions in the online world — with manipulated images and selective sharing that shows people enjoying a seemingly carefree, “perfect” life — are an unhealthy influence on the mind, especially young minds. From the priorities I see being valued online today, and in the media in general, it’s no wonder that many people think that aspiring to be a billionaire is the most important thing in the world. It’s no wonder people feel increasingly divided and lonely.
    In reality, what we need most right now are legions of billionaires of the heart, multitudes of masters of the mind, and models of peace, equality, and unity in diversity. That, in my opinion, is what upcoming generations need to see.
    I hope that, somehow, in the near future, the various technological poisons that society is facing can be turned into healing medicine.
    At the moment, the best solution is to simply spend less time on our phones, tablets, and computers and more time with each other, with real human beings, face-to-face, heart-to-heart.
    When I’m at home with Erwin, we make it a point not to get distracted by phones at mealtimes. Not that screens and devices are the only culprits. I often find it hard to tear myself away from the book I’m reading — I know you can relate if you love to read as much as I do. But I resist, because no novel can compare to sharing time with my dear partner.
    I know that the last thing anyone ever wants to do is think about death, but as someone who has faced my own mortality time and again, I am all too aware that life is short and can end at any moment. Being always aware of the limited time we have here on Earth, and making the most of it, for the good of all, is also a part of my spiritual practice.
    • Ch. 8 : Homecoming
  • We must do our part to prevent barriers from rising between one human heart and another. We must curb the trend of neighbors no longer knowing each other, while they seek a sense of shared identity with people elsewhere, perhaps even in other countries, separating themselves along racial, religious, or national lines. This fracturing of society is unsustainable.
    We all have a number of aspects to our identities. My identity has included many ingredients in this lifetime, including: daughter, sister, Baptist, singer, American, mother, Buddhist, actress, Swiss, spouse, and more. But the most important, core identity that I share with you and every other person on the planet is this: human.
    I believe that only by awakening to this shared identity can we save ourselves, individually and collectively, from the problems we face around the world.     We must urgently work together to find solutions that can transform the global poisons of systemic racism and homophobia, climate crisis, pandemics, loss of the Amazon jungle, factory farming of animals, fossil fuel consumption, nuclear weapons, plastic pollution, and more.
    The universal solution to all of the problems confronting humanity is for us to unite as one global team, honoring our truest roots as members of the same circle of life.
    Uniting in this spirit is my hope and prayer for future generations.
    • Ch. 8 : Homecoming
  • The good, the bad, the ugly, and the pretty, it all adds up to me. I honor my journey, all of it. Changing the past would mean changing me. And I like me, just the way I am. Why would I want to change anything?
    Depending on who asks the question, I occasionally throw a curveball with a deeper, more philosophical answer, along these lines:
    I’ve already changed my past, by turning poison into medicine, and by raising my life condition, which transforms my perception of the past. Our perception determines the way events affect us. So, when we change the way a past event affects us, we effectively change the past.
    In other words, since past, present, and future are seamlessly connected, a change in the present moment has the power to affect a change in everything throughout all directions of space and time.
    Every now and then, when I share this answer, I’m told that I sound like a Jedi master from Star Wars, so I don’t share it often. But I hope you enjoy hearing it.
    • Ch. 8 : Homecoming
  • On an even deeper level, the reason I happily and gratefully accept everything I went through in the past is because I believe every detail of my life is both my karma and my mission.
    We are all born with a mission, a purpose, that only we can fulfill.
    When you live with a joyful sense of purpose, when you infuse your life with a greater purpose beyond your individual self, every aspect of your karma can become a brilliant facet of your mission. You can transform sorrow and adversity of any sort into joy, stability, health, and prosperity. By changing poison into medicine and accomplishing your inner revolution, you can use every experience of karma to encourage others who suffer from the same problems that you overcame.
    You can become an ambassador of hope, an essential and radiant treasure of humanity, in which you recognize that all who have ever lived are members of your extended family.
    As you continue to spread light in this way, actively doing good in the world, that energy will come back to you in abundant positivity. When you refuse to perpetuate any bad that has been done to you, you can free yourself from the chains of negativity.
    • Ch. 8 : Homecoming
  • Use your life for peace and goodwill.
    Keep on going until you climb the summit of your happiest dreams.
    I hope that what I’ve offered in this little book will be of service to you in your ascent to new heights of fulfillment.
    Thank you for letting me share my life with you. Thank you for opening your heart and mind to my words.
    I wish you well on your journey to joy, and I leave you with this final thought, my greatest wish and prayer for you:
please
never give up,
keep on
making the impossible possible,
turning
poison into medicine,
so you
may become truly happy,
because
happiness becomes you,
forever.
  • Closing statement, Ch. 8 : Homecoming

Lyrics

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  • Sometimes I'm tossed and driven, Lord,
    Sometimes I don't know where to go.
    My mother and father won't own me,
    So I'll try to make heaven my home.
  • We never, ever, do nothin' nice and easy. We always do it nice and rough.
  • There are two sides to everybody,
    A good side and a bad,
    A side to make you happy,
    A side to make you mad.
  • Some of us are livin' in an earthly heaven,
    Lord, some of us are livin' in hell.
    Yeah, we're livin' in hell,
    Right here.
    • "That's My Purpose" on Nutbush City Limits (1973)
  • King of the jungle,
    The lion he roars,
    But the lioness calmly
    Soothes his soul.
    • "Delilah's Power" (first released in 1975 as "Delila's Power") on Delilah's Power (1977)
  • People often ask me when am I gonna slow down. You know what I tell 'em? I'm just gettin' started.
    • Spoken interlude during "Proud Mary", live at The Apollo, Manchester (14 March 1979); published in "On the Road", VHS)

Beyond

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Swiss spiritual music group
  • Beyond the power – you find the flower.
    Beyond the bound – you find new ground.
    • "Calling by Tina" on Children – With Children United in Prayer (2011)
  • In the beginning, we all depend on attention and affection of our mother or other caring people. Without love and care, we cannot survive. Without loving action, we miss the meaning of life.
    • "Love Within" on Children – With Children United in Prayer (2014)

Quotes about Tina Turner

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  • She's a good-hearted woman in love with a good-timin' man.
    She loves him in spite of his ways she don't understand.
    With teardrops and laughter they pass through this world hand in hand,
    A good-hearted woman, lovin' a good-timin' man.
  • Ike was often unpredictable in his actions and reactions, while Tina Turner only very rarely lost her composure even in her hardest times. For the band and all the other employees, she was always something like a haven of tranquility in the big thunderstorm.
    • Original German: Ike war oft unberechenbar in seinen Aktionen und Reaktionen, während Tina Turner selbst in ihren schwersten Zeiten nur sehr selten die Fassung verlor. Für die Band und alle anderen Mitarbeiter war sie stets so etwas wie ein ruhender Pol im großen Gewitter.
  • I have to admit, I learned a lot from her and the way she saw music. She would say something like, "Oh, don't play that chord that sounds like running water." Or, "That is too blue. Give me more green." My first thought as a music snob was, "Oh come on! I have to figure out what green or water means? Take some time and learn what a chord is!" That was my big mistake! It took me a few years to realize that if I could realize what she was saying by learning to speak her language, she was always right! She was always right and in a way taught me so much. Her musical instincts are absolutely impeccable. People like to say, "Oh yeah, she's got the great legs. She's got a great voice. She's a great singer and dancer. She is a great personality." They talk about the hair and everything else. Those are all true but the thing I have the most respect for is as a band leader and a record producer. Very rarely did she take a credit as a record producer but, I swear, she knew everything everybody was playing and she knew how to make it better! [...] I was so lucky to be around one of the major musical forces of the late 20th century! She truly is amazing!
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