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.

God has blessed you when he lets you believe in somebody.

If I'm going to sing like someone else, then I don't need to sing at all.

I try to improvise like Les Young, Louis Armstrong or someone else I admire. What comes out is what I feel.

You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling.

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

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.