I just get an idea and then all of a sudden I've got a song.

The blues tells a story. Every line of the blues has a meaning.

I don't play a lot of fancy guitar. I don't want to play it. The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean licks.

When I die, they'll bury the blues with me. But the blues will never die.

I don't do nothin’ I don't want to do.

I don't think about time. You're here when you're here. I think about today, staying in tune.

The one thing the blues don't get is the backing and pushing of TV and radio like a lot of this garbage you hears. They choke stuff down people's throat so they got no choice but to listen to it.

No matter what you got, the blues is there

It's never hard to sing the blues. Everyone in the world has the blues . . .

I remember back in Detroit, I used to go to the Apex Bar every night after I got off work. The bartender there used to call me Boom Boom. I don't know why, but he did.

I hitchhiked, took trucks 'n' trains - anything that would pick me up. I stopped in Memphis for about six months and they found me and come got me. Stayed about a month an' split again.

I'm stuck in between a nightmare and lost dreams

Honoring a life is honoring the wide open space of wilderness and unknowing where the sacred dwells.

There is no greater evidence of superior intelligence than to be surprised at nothing.

Man can no longer live his life for himself alone. We realize that all life is valuable and that we are united to all this life. From this knowledge comes our spiritual relationship to the universe.

The big guys, the big dogs, are going to own everything from the White House to the courthouse.

What I learned on the road. Above all else - to love my native land.

It won't be long before we'll be deafened by the screeches of whistles being blown by whistle-blowers blowing the whistle on themselves.

The mists of nostalgia color memory.

I think it's absolutely a blessing when you just know what your purpose is and your destiny. I don't think it's a curse at all.

When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.