“Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you – and kill you the long, slow, hard way.”

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.

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

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.

Is it even love, if you have to fight so hard for it?

His students were hardly in a position to tell him when he was getting windy, and he had recently noticed, as most professors did after a while, that his lectures mysteriously seemed to be getting longer with time.

Keep working hard and you can get anything that you want.

Since I was a kid, when I pick up my guitar it’s been hard for me to write some sort of bubblegum lyrics. It’s not really ever been my route.

The road to national rebirth is a hard one, but there is no other.

It’s very hard, feeling that you’re no more than a piece of unwanted furniture in this world.

I’ve always found it pretty difficult to write a happy song. Since I was a kid, when I pick up my guitar it’s been hard for me to write some sort of bubblegum lyrics. It’s not really ever been my route.

Once you have your practice and you have your mechanics, you must be able to go out there and trust your mechanics.