"I guess I'm not the only one who heard their first good jazz in a whorehouse. But I never tried to make anything of it. If I'd heard Louis and Bessie at a Girl Scout jamboree, I'd have loved it just t…"

"The blues to me is like a prayer. It's a way of talking to God."

"I never had a lesson in my life. I never learned to read music. I can't read music. I play by ear, and I sing by ear."

"If you copy, it means you're working without any chief — without any chief of your own."

"If I can't sing, I don't want to live."