B. B. King

I think I’ve done the best I could have done. But I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I haven’t yet done. When I was younger I thought maybe I’d reached that peak. But I’m 86 now, and if I make it through to next month, I’ll be 87. And now I know it can never be perfect, it can never be exactly what it should be, so you got to keep going further, getting better.

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

I’m more careful about my hands than about what I eat and most anything else, because my hands have been my living. My hands have been able to help me learn. My hands have taken me around the world. So I’m very proud of my hands.

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.

My dad died, I think, at 87. So I’ll be lucky if I make 87. But in a lot of cases, the younger people live longer than their parents. And they know more. My dad used to tell me he ate the hog from his rooter to his tooter. So do I when I’m not trying to lose weight.

Back when we was in school in Mississippi, we had Little Black Sambo. That’s what you learned: Anytime something was not good, or anytime something was bad in some kinda way, it had to be called black. Like, you had Black Monday, Black Friday, black sheep… Of course, everything else, all the good stuff, is white. White Christmas and such.

I love Jazz because it has the perfect balance of discipline and freedom.

I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case and throw in a piece of raw meat.

Just because I’m playing Jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through Jazz.

Regardless of what you play, the biggest thing is keeping the feel going.

When you are so strongly drawn to music, you can’t ‘not’ be a musician.

The fact that an artist is experiencing the joy of creation makes me feel like we’re in it together.

You don’t know what love is, until you’ve learned the meaning of the blues, until you’ve loved a love you’ve had to lose.

In the world of Art there are no wrong choices.

To me, the guitar cuts through. It carries more than the organ, but the organ has got more guts.

Sometimes it’s to your advantage for people to think you’re crazy.

You get that right tickin’ rhythm, man and its ON!

I have won several prizes as the world’s slowest alto player and a special award in 1961 for quietness.

Critics get a little carried away with what someone should have done, rather than what he did.

The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial.

The Blues contain so much joy and sadness at the same time.