B. B. King

I developed in my head that I’m never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it’s like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it’s more like concern. You’re concerned about the people – like meeting your in-laws for the first time.

I call myself a blues singer, but you ain’t never heard me call myself a blues guitar man.

I remember Elvis as a young man hanging around the Sun Studios. Even then, I knew this kid had a tremendous talent. He was a dynamic young boy. His phraseology, his way of looking at a song, was as unique as Sinatra’s. I was a tremendous fan, and had Elvis lived, there would have been no end to his inventiveness.

In our local Baptist church, I sang in the choir and formed a gospel quartet. When our minister caught me messing with his guitar, he taught me three positions – one, four and five. After that, I taught myself to play.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t right.

When people treat you mean, you dislike them for that, but not because of their person, who they are. I was born and raised in a segregated society, but when I left there, I had nobody I disliked other than the people that’d mistreated me, and that only lasted for as long as they were mistreating me.

I don’t want to stop and I don’t think Pete (Pete Townshend) does. We’re at the pinnacle of our decline.

There’s nothing I really wanted to do in life that I wasn’t able to get good at. That’s my skill. I’m not really specifically talented at anything except for the ability to learn. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m here for.

I see my role as a baby doctor helping people deliver their babies. I felt the same way in the music industry.

Personally, I would much rather live and die by my own hand. If my stuff sucks, then at least I made it suck. I didn’t allow some person, some old dude in a suit, to make it suck for me.

I’ve lived in this fame trip since 1986. I’ve found that unless you’re rooted in something bigger than fame, you start believing your own hype.

For anyone who feels the need to hate, just know I’m looking at my phone like #GirlBye!

The death penalty is like the McRib. When you can’t have it, it seems so tantalizing. But when they bring it back, you think, ‘Wow, this is ethically wrong’.

You’d be surprised how much fun you start to have once ya stop giving A f**k.

And I’m looking at him like, ‘Oh my God. This is Michael Jackson’. I fainted, blacked out – like seriously blacked out.

That’s when I realized that as long as you don’t broadcast your beefs, you can get away cold with murder. It’s even better if you don’t allow the beef to take place. If someone disrespects you, you can know in your heard that you’re going to get him, but you don’t have to show him there’s a beef. You can just look at it like, Okay, this nigga must not know. And then you fall back and you put it down.

When I was flying to Rome, we flew over London; I felt like bursting into tears. It’s part of me, so I can’t leave London behind for good.

I want to spend time with Oprah, and I don’t know what I need to do to make that happen.

When I was going to school in, like, ’84 to ’88, you didn’t have cell phones. There was no e-mail, if you can wrap your brain around that.

Keep in mind that most men like to pursue and win you. Don’t rob him of the enjoyment of doing that. When it comes to dressing to go out, it’s been my experience that guys prefer to think that the object of their affection is someone exclusive who isn’t available to everyone in the room. You’re clever enough to strike the right balance between hot and classy, aren’t you? Turn up the heat, but don’t invite the whole fire department.

Every race is a chapter. Those are two important races. Who knows what Sunday will bring?