“I joined Count Basie’s band to make a little money and to see the world. For two years I didn’t see anything but the inside of a Blue Goose bus, and I never got to send home a quarter.”

People don’t understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.

I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.

If I don’t have friends, then I ain’t nothing.

God bless the child that’s got his own.

The blues to me is like being very sad, very sick, going to church, being very happy … it’s sort of a mixed up thing. You just have to feel it.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

I’m always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I’ve been.

I don’t think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life.

Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.

In this country, don’t forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There’s no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it’s the worst kind of hell for those who love you.

The difficult I’ll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.

New Orleans is the only city in the world you go in to buy a pair of nylon stockings they want to know your head size.

You’ve got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body’s sermon on how to behave.

There’s no damn business like show business – you have to smile to keep from throwing up.

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That’s all I know.

I have always been fascinated with those who try to look over the horizon and see things that are coming at us.

I’ve seen the ticket, and I still can’t believe it. When I see the money, I hope I don’t hit the floor.

Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings. Now, think. What delight God gives to humankind with all these things . All nature is at the disposal of humankind. We are to work with it. For without we cannot survive.

Consider God’s charity. Where else have we ever seen someone who has been offended voluntarily paying out his life for those who have offended him?

I’m the type who’d rather not work than work on something I’m not into. I’ve done that a couple of times, and I feel like I can totally see it in my performance.

As far as I’ve been alive, women have always been more or less the symbol of sexuality rather than the male. We don’t see the naked male body, as the symbol of sex.

Peer into the depths of your soul and see – your magic exceeds that of the stars. Imagine you are viewing the universe you are.

You look at me and see the girl,who lives inside the golden world,but don’t believe, that’s all there is to see,you’ll never know the real me.