B. B. King

The blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn’t know how other people would take it.

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

Do I love the road? Honestly? No – but it’s how I earn my living. I also don’t have the blues, like it’s some kind of fever. The blues is my job. It’s what I do.

I tell my children now that they are older, ‘If something happens to me… don’t make no big fuss over me. Don’t make no big expense on my funeral. Don’t put any pressure on the rest of the family. I’ve loved everybody, and I hope they loved me. But don’t create this big expense for the family.’

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.

The great jazz instrumentalists taught me how to sing and interpret a song. they showed me how a horn can have as much personality as an actor.

Well, I speak for my show only when I say we’re in debt to journalists because we’re just pulling clips all day long which they made in the first place. We know that a lot of people watching our show haven’t been watching the news as closely as we have – they haven’t been following hundreds of reporters on Twitter all day. So I guess our goal is to say: ‘Hey, here’s what happened today in 10 minutes, and hopefully we’ll tell you in a way that won’t make you throw your remote at the television’.

I keep forgetting I’m speaking in an American accent sometimes. The dangerous thing is that you end up forgetting what your real accent is after a while! It’s really strange; I’ve never done a job in an American accent before.

Some of the best times in my life happened under the influence of drugs… I’d still be doing it if I could make good judgement calls. I’d still be doing it if I didn’t blow up to the size of an aircraft hangar, because it was a great time.

If guys don’t respect themselves, they don’t respect other people. That’s times and personalities. And all of them are not that way. But it don’t take but one or two to screw up the whole crowd.

[on Trump] He’s like the guy drowning but waving off a lifeboat saying, ‘Get out of here, I’m very buoyant. I’m the most buoyant. Everybody talks about my buoyancy. I’m a tremendous floater.’

Oh God, don’t make me come across as a moaner. I think it’s unacceptable to moan about anything when you’re lucky enough to do what I do. What I’m trying to say is I’m more settled now. The thirties have calmed me down. I know who my real friends are, I know what I want to do. In your twenties, you just do everything. It’s just overload all the time. In the thirties, you learn that it’s OK to go to bed early if you want.

[On working with Woody Allen] That was a very surreal experience: I had studied the script right down to the punctuation marks, and then he would say ‘we’re not going to say what’s on the page, and you don’t really have to either, try to keep up.’

There’s no point regretting things. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Life’s too short to worry about things I’ve said.

Cats know, comin’ out of four, they better be standin’ on it, else they’ll be standin’ in it.

I don’t particularly tell my guys to cheat. I just tell them not to get caught.

I didn’t really have any idea of what Hollywood was except that it was a place where the made movies.

I realized what Led Zeppelin was about around the end of our first U.S. tour. We started off not even on the bill in Denver, and by the time we got to New York we were second to Iron Butterfly, and they didn’t want to go on!

[on shopping] God no! I hate it, absolutely hate it. I can’t stand it, it’s such a drag. So I just tend to wear the same things all the time. I don’t like change anyway.

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’

I just want to make the best music of all time with my best friends.