“The Blues? It’s the mother of American music. That’s what is is – the source.”

I’ve put up with more humiliation than I care to remember.

I don’t like anybody to be angry with me. I’d rather have friends.

A day that I don’t learn something new is a wasted day.

I never use that word, retire.

The way I feel today, as long as my health is good and I can handle myself well and people still come to my concerts, still buy my CDs, I’ll keep playing until I feel like I can’t.

I don’t try to just be a blues singer – I try to be an entertainer. That has kept me going.

I’ve been married twice. Most women would rather not be married to a traveling blues singer.

I don’t think anybody steals anything; all of us borrow.

Elvis, he was unique. And he loved the blues, it was a pity he didn’t do more.

May I live forever. But may you live forever and a day.

And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.

I’m no good with chords. I’m horrible with chords.

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy’s playing blues like we play, he’s in high school. When he starts playing jazz it’s like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.

Sometimes the proprietors of the little juke joints gave me a couple dollars. I loved that. I’d go back next Saturday.

There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I haven’t yet done.

Education is the one thing that no one can take from you.

It seems wisest to assume the worst from the beginning, and let anything better come as a surprise.

The day you stop learning is the day you begin decaying.

The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.

Begin now what you will be hereafter.

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

As soon as government management begins it upsets the natural equilibrium of industrial relations, and each interference only requires further bureaucratic control until the end is the tyranny of the totalitarian state.

In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.

I began to think that my time had come, as the saying is.