B. B. King

Ignorance is bliss? That’s bull, far as I’m concerned. Because I was making a half a cent a side – one penny for a record. It’s like building buses, for example. If you built this bus for me and I didn’t know anything about it, you could charge me whatever I’d pay for it. Now, which one of us is crazy? Me. And that’s the way they did me on the records. But I don’t fault them for it, because if you don’t know, you don’t know. It took me to learn.

I’ve put up with more humiliation than I care to remember.

Playing the guitar is like telling the truth – you never have to worry about repeating the same [lie] if you told the truth. You don’t have to pretend, or cover up. If someone asks you again, you don’t have to think about it or worry about it because there it is. It’s you.

You only live but once, and when your died your done, so let the good times roll.

I started to like blues, I guess, when I was about 6 or 7 years old. There was something about it, because nobody else played that kind of music.

We all have idols. Play like anyone you care about but try to be yourself while you’re doing so.

Shaving your head is so empowering. You don’t need hair to be beautiful. You are beautiful with or without. I learnt that too.

An awful lot of gay pop stars pretend to be straight. I’m going to start a movement of straight pop stars pretending to be gay.

I don’t think it makes me a role model. I think it makes me inspiring. Cause I’m from the bottom I think they look at me and go ‘well, if he made it, I can make it’

My father’s name is Vernon, and my mother liked the initials double V, so she named my sisters Victoria and Valerie. That’s cool- except when the dogs start getting V names.

[on the “The Notebook” script] I’m a sucker for those sweeping love stories. When I read the script, I couldn’t stop crying! I just had such a powerful, instantaneous reaction – it was written so well.

I have to say, I’m really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date.

If you’re an actor and you don’t get cast in stuff a lot, then put together a show or hold play-reading nights at your apartment. Make your own opportunities.

I’ve seen the photos of me and Flo Rida. It doesn’t matter how we met. We met. I don’t want to say that we’re a couple. I can definitely say that he’s somebody in my life, and I’m definitely interested but I’m not serious with anybody.

I think the most embarrassing part of that was just the normal dancing. When the rock band comes. I think there was two days where the crew was like, “Just dance, just dance.”. So, you can’t, in a club or whatever…That was really awkward.

In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.

I’m a chocolate addict!

[On taking a pay cut to make a documentary] I could keep trying to do the same kind of comedies. You know how it’s going to go, and you can get an audience with it, but then I feel like a hamster on a wheel.

Two Sundays don’t make a season. But if we keep it together, we are going to win a whole bunch of races this year.

The whole idea of music, from the beginning of time, was for people to be happy.

I would say that one of your greatest accomplishments, Amy Poehler, is that you have so successfully used your art and comedy as a source of positivity in the world, by creating Smart Girls [an online community for girls, encouraging them to be their authentic selves], by making [Leslie in] Parks and Rec not only a positive feminist character but creating a good-hearted worldview within that program.