“Music is good for everybody. They say it soothes the savage beast. Well, I think theirs a beast in all of us. So let’s get some more music and soothe all the beasts out there.”

Many people leave the country to see beautiful places. I just look out the window and see some of the most gorgeous scenery ever, right here in the USA.

I look at an audience kind of like meeting my in-laws for the first time. You want to be yourself, but you still want to be somebody that they like. When I go on the stage each night, I try my best to outguess my audience.

If you can’t get your songs to people one way, you have to find another.

Nobody loves me but my mother, And she could be jivin’ too.

It just seemed to me that the way I played was nice. I could hear it myself.

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.

Really good things take time to grow. Foundation is not built over night.

A weapon isn’t good or bad, depends on the person who uses it.

The Good News of the gospel of grace cries out: We are all, equally, privileged but unentitled beggars at the door of God’s mercy!

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.

The best armor against everything around you is to be well educated, to work hard, to be twice as good as if you had to be, to do languages and culture better.

My dad raised me with some good advice: ‘Always tell the truth. Always shoot from the hip. You might not have many friends, but you’ll never have enemies, because people will always know where you’re coming from.’

However softly we speak, God is so close to us that he can hear us; nor do we need wings to go in search of him, but merely to seek solitude and contemplate him within ourselves, without being surprised to find such a good Guest there.

How the feeling of never being good enough rarely ever wears off her chest.