"I did what I felt, and I felt what I did, at all costs"
About this Quote
The intent reads as both brag and testimony. Richard isn’t selling mere authenticity; he’s naming a price. Coming up through segregated venues and moral panic, channeling a flamboyance that American mainstream culture wanted either sanitized or condemned, he understood that self-expression wasn’t a brand choice - it was exposure. The subtext is a survival ethic for a performer who helped invent rock’s erotic charge while being policed for it: your body becomes the instrument, your instrument becomes evidence.
Context matters because Little Richard’s career is famously turbulent: peaks of ecstatic invention, then abrupt retreats into religious recommitment, then returns to the stage. “I felt what I did” sounds like a man haunted by the collision between Pentecostal fear and pop desire. The line works because it doesn’t resolve that contradiction. It insists the only honest ledger is lived experience, totaled up without discounts.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Richard, Little. (2026, January 16). I did what I felt, and I felt what I did, at all costs. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-did-what-i-felt-and-i-felt-what-i-did-at-all-122164/
Chicago Style
Richard, Little. "I did what I felt, and I felt what I did, at all costs." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-did-what-i-felt-and-i-felt-what-i-did-at-all-122164/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I did what I felt, and I felt what I did, at all costs." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-did-what-i-felt-and-i-felt-what-i-did-at-all-122164/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2026.





