I don't think I ever sing the same way twice. The blues is sort of a mixed-up thing. You just have to feel it. Anything I do sing is part of my life.

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

I never hurt nobody but myself and that's nobody's business but my own.

I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I'm playing a horn...What comes out is what I feel.

Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on.

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

In this country kings or dukes don't amount to nothing. The greatest man around then was Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he was the President; so I started calling Lester the President. It got shortened to Pres.