I was playing with steel picks on a steel guitar, and there was no amplification needed.

My guitar was loud as hell, and I had no sympathy for anybody else.

I got Sonny up to Harlem, and we started street playin' in New York. We did that for three or four years and survived. We brought it back to the streets again.

I never had the blues; the blues always had me.

That's what I liked about hitch-hiking. If a crowd wasn't big enough, I kept walkin.'

Everybody would grab a guitar and listen to somebody else and call themselves a folk singer. When they didn't know no more songs, they'd run out of them.

When I was hitch-hiking, people had to follow me, 'cause I didn't stay long.

Logically, when you talkin' about folk music and blues, you find out it's music of just plain people.

When somebody blazes a path to a highway that never end, you should appreciate 'em some.

Blues is not a dream, blues is truth.

I only write about what I do, what happens to me.

Beauty lies not in a flawless complexion, but in the stories that are told by each transitioning line on a woman’s face.

The solution to self-pity is found in the labor of selfless giving to others.

Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.

Communication is about being effective, not always about being proper.

The brave man, inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger.

We may learn from children how large a part of our grievances is imaginary. But the pain is just as real.

It is much easier to do something than to trust in God. That is why there are so few fellow workers with God and so many workers for Him. We would far rather work for God than believe in Him.

There is much in nature against us. But we forget: Take nature altogether since time began, Including human nature, in peace and war, And it must be a little more in favor of man.

Before God could bring me to this place He has broken me a thousand times.

Embodiment means we no longer say, I had this experience; we say, I am this experience.