My big ears indicated a talent for music. This thrilled me.

With a guitar I would be able to express the things I felt in sounds.

Setting my mind on a musical instrument was like falling in love. All the world seemed bright and changed.

Life is like a trumpet - if you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it.

Whenever I heard the song of a bird and the answering call of its mate, I could visualize the notes in scale, all built up within my consciousness as a natural symphony.

If my serenade of song and story should serve as a pillow for some composer's head, as yet perhaps unborn, to dream and build on our fond melodies in his tomorrow, I have not labored in vain.

I knew the whistle of each of the river boats on the Tennessee.

You can never tell what's in a woman's mind, And if she's from Harlem, there's no use o' tryin

Saving was slow and painful.

Nature was my kindergarten.

You'll never miss the water 'til the well runs dry.

A girl who travels won’t need a saviour

If I become the man you want, I wouldn't be the man I am.

There was a young lady named Mae Who smoked without stopping all day; As pack followed pack, Her lungs first turned black, And eventually rotted away.

Dissent without action is consent.

A saint is never consciously a saint- a saint is consciously dependent on God.

Art is long, and critics are the insects of a day.

The Orientals have another word for accident; it is "kismet,"--fate.

I teach for the Book Trust, which promotes reading and writing with children.

A soup like this is not the work of one man. It is the result of a constantly refined tradition. There are nearly a thousand years of history in this soup.