In 1940 I came across a record by Jimmy Yancey. I can't say how important that record is. From then on, all I wanted to do was play the blues.

Since the age of 12, all my musical thinking has been influenced by Afro-American music.

The British feel of blues has been hard, rather than emotional. Far too much emphasis on 12 bar, too little attention to words, far too little originality.

I wanted to be able to play guitar. I wanted to be able to make music hurt.

Every musical movement that is big enough has to produce some good musicians who wouldn't have had the incentive to start playing without it.

In those days, between the ages of 12 and 18 you meant nothing. You were the extra place at the side table if someone came to dinner. You were of no interest to anyone.

I guess music, particularly the blues, is the only form of schizophrenia that has organised itself into being both legal and beneficial to society.

I must have been heavily schizophrenic all my life. The me who hears what the other me can't play is the dominant one.

The parallel development in American blues to the British movement has resulted in Johnny Winters.

I'm a compulsive musician, but it's also a bloody good way out of having to do anything else.

Once you became associated with a children's show, you're finished.

If you dwell in the darkness, you can see in the dark and look into the light. But in choosing the darkness, you know you are destined to walk alone.

Discover your calling and add value to it

Science says that and sociable and not in both shoes you could be happy.

I had witnessed the sort of atrocities during the war than threaten to steal a man's soul.

Heaven doesn't ignore cries of a broken heart.

It isn't until you come to a spiritual understanding of who you are-not necessarily a religious feeling but deep down the spirit within-that you can begin to take control.

That's what we all do: endlessly take the long way around.

Accomplishment comes from making positive efforts, even in the face of negative circumstances.

By the mind one is bound; by the mind one is freed. ... He who asserts with strong conviction: "I am not bound, I am free," becomes free.

People who say, "I don't know what to do," usually aren't inspired enough to make it happen.