A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable.

Saving was slow and painful.

The name of my ailment was longing, and it was not cured till I finally went to the department store and counted out the money in small coins before the dismayed clerk. When I came to the house, I held up the instrument before the eyes of the astonished household.

Where the Tennessee River, like a silver snake, winds her way through the clay hills of Alabama, sits high on these hills, my home town, Florence.

Life is like a trumpet - if you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it.

I hate to see the evening sun go down.

I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro.