When you sing, always tell the truth.

I think I copied my style from Louis Armstrong. Because I used to like the big volume and the big sound that Bessie Smith got when she sang ... So I liked the feeling that Louis got and I wanted the big volume that Bessie Smith got. But I found that it didn't work with me, because I didn't have a big voice. So anyway between the two of them I sorta got Billie Holiday.

I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years.

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

I hate straight singing. I have to change a tune to my own way of doing it. That's all I know.

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

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.