“When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.”

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.

The only reason they’re out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.

Sometimes it’s worse to win a fight than to lose.

The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.

I’ve been told that nobody sings the word ‘hunger’ like I do.

I don’t think I’m singing. I feel like I’m playing a horn, What comes out is what I feel.

You can’t copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you’re working without any real feeling.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

And when you’re poor, you grow up fast.

Don’t be in such a hurry.

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.

I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.

The piano and the singing are two equal things to me – maybe not inseparable but very connected. You can say they are like two equal voices.

My singing, if you want to call it that is merely another medium of expression. Just an instrument I play. That’s how I see my voice.

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” a song that was written for Simone, she confronted the band’s lead singer, Eric Burdon. “So you’re the honky,” she said, “who stole my song and got a hit out of it?

It’s not easy, though, singing upside down in a headstand on a raised platform with your unfettered breasts hitting you in the chin.

As of now they are still very young so that has come in the form of dress up, make believe and singing songs.

A wise man sings his joy in the closet of his heart.

Is there a short-eared koobish, then?’ Mmmyes …’ said J.Lo. ‘But it is technically not really a koobish. Is more alike a kind of singing pumpkin.’ We had conversations like these all the time, where I just eventually gave up.

He’s not going to let anybody do his singing for him.