One day a whole damn song fell into place in my head.

If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you're out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung.

The blues to me is like being very sad, very sick, going to church, being very happy ... it's sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it.

God bless the child that's got his own.

Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.

There's no damn business like show business - you have to smile to keep from throwing up.

And when you're poor, you grow up fast.

Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.

I can only sing songs my way. I don't know any other way.

If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.

I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.

You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave.

People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

Don't be in such a hurry.

Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.

I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been.

I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I'm playing a horn...What comes out is what I feel.