I been in the blues all my life. I'm still delivering 'cause I got a long memory.

I got that first record out, it came out in '47... Then my name began to ring around. I began to take over. From that point, I tell you, Chicago was in my hand, all the more time that those guys had to listen to me.

Find me playing till sunrise for 50 cents and a sandwich.

I was always singing the way I felt, and maybe I didn't exactly know it, but I just didn't like the way things were down there-in Mississippi.

All the kids made their own git-tars. Made mine out of a box and bit of stick for a neck. Couldn't do much with it, but that's how you learn.

I rambled all the time. I was just like that, like a rollin' stone.

He took my music, but he gave me my name.