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.

Lust may be in the heart, though it be not seen by others; as guests may be in the house, though they look not out at the windows.

A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

I've been told that nobody sings the word 'hunger' like I do.

And when you're poor, you grow up fast.

All dope can do for you is kill you... the long hard way. And it can kill the people you love right along with you.

If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you're out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had in a good case of paralytic polio or by living in an iron lung.