The only reason they're out there is to see me fall into the damn orchestra pit.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

So I asked him to play "Trav'lin' All Alone." That came closer than anything to the way I felt. And some part of it must have come across. The whole joint quieted down. If someone had dropped a pin, it would have sounded like a bomb. When I finished, everybody in the joint was crying in their beer, and I picked thirty-eight bucks up off the floor. . . . When I showed Mom the money for the rent and told her I had a regular job singing for eighteen dollars a week, she could hardly believe it.

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

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

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

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.