"I never had a mother that was really a mother. I just had a kid that was a mother. She was eighteen, I was thirteen, and she used to go out and live it up. So I had to go out and get a job. I was work…"

"When you're singing, you're singing about life, about what's happening to you."

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

"I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or somethin…"

"I'm not supposed to be a singer. I'm supposed to be a painter. I can paint, you know."