B. B. King

I’ve been a loner all the time throughout my life… I haven’t been the best father… Many times… my children have accused me of not giving them enough attention. And, frankly, I never have been good at handling that.

The blues was bleeding the same blood as me.

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales.

If T-Bone Walker had been a woman, I would have asked him to marry me. I’d never heard anything like that before: single-string blues played on an electric guitar.

I’ve known people that was a part of a family and always feel that the family liked everyone else but them. That hurts, and that’s as deep a hurt as you can possibly get. I’ve known people that would have problems with their love life. This is kind of how blues began – out of feeling misused, mistreated. Feeling like they had nobody to turn to. Blues don’t necessarily have to be sung by a person that came from Mississippi as I did, because there are people having problems all over the world.

The crowds treat me like my last name. When I go onstage people usually stand up, I never ask them to, but they do. They stand up and they don’t know how much I appreciate it.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art.

Ahhh – those Jazz guys are just makin’ that stuff up!

This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.

Music is interior decoration.

In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that no one else has thought of.

People always ask, “Why jazz?” and I’m like “Why not?” It’s kind of like asking Seurat, “Why so many dots?” I imagine if you asked Bjork, “Why the Tibetan bells?” She’d probably be like “That’s just what I heard.” It’s the same thing. This is just the way I see music.

You know the actor John Garfield? In one movie he walked up to this train station, the ticket booth, and the guy says, ‘Yes, where are you going?’ And he says, ‘I want a ticket to nowhere.’ I thought: that’s it. The freedom to do that. I want a ticket to nowhere.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man and bring tears to the eyes of woman.

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.

Music is a gift and a burden I’ve had since I can remember who I was.

Records used to be documents, but now record companies want product.

Music is your experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.

In composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, in improvisation you have 15 seconds.

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.

The real innovators did their innovating by just being themselves.