Ninety-five percent of my audience was white.

I played with Eddie Taylor's son, Tim Taylor and Carey Bells son Lurie Bell.

I did my first recording. It was called The Champ.

Three months. I was playing the organ for three months. It was a challenge for me in the beginning.

I just came from Aspen, Colorado and they had fifteen kids I played for and they all played horns.

My boys told me they'd rather play than practice.

I heard Mr. Wild Bill Davis. I heard him play in 1930 and he told me that it would take me fifteen years just to learn the pedals, the pedals of the organ and I got mad.

I played with Sam Lay, Jimmy Reed, Big Walter Horton, Big Moose Walker, and all those guys.

Yeah, you know everybody has somebody that they patterned themselves after.

I always had the facial hair so I looked older than I was.

My mom would have liked it that I patterned myself more after Jimmy Reed.

My first recording, a guy came down to Philadelphia and heard me play and he introduced me to Alfred Lion.

Ninety-five percent of my audience was white.

Michael Coleman, now that was a boy that taught me some stuff too.

And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find.

People like the idea of the trio and so I did mostly trio.

All the colleges I played, most of the colleges, they were white.

One of the cruelties of teenagehood is that you’ll never know what your parents were really like at your age, and they’ll never accurately remember.

We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.

I always wanted to say I came out of the cornfields and got to the major leagues. That was my biggest thought. But now I can say I came out of the cornfields and got to the Hall of Fame.

And in that time, I lost my dad and had kids of my own. It was like, OK, I get it now. I know what fatherhood is all about. And you look at your parents differently.

I'm just getting my sea legs. The first time you make them laugh, you're like, 'Oh my God - that just happened.' Then you're like, 'I made them laugh. I've earned this.'

I get nervous cooking for our little house party barbecues. I'm very insecure with my cooking. I tend to throw things away that I'm scared of serving, even though they might be great.

It costs so much to promote something these days that almost always safety is the preferred option, reference back to things which have been successful in the past. Also, people are simply not given the time to develop and find themselves and their audience as we were.

It's a wonderful city and every American has enjoyed New Orleans in one way or the other.

What's very important is that we build a space that matters in the world, one that operates according to democratic rules, and that small and large countries enjoy a good relationship.

Hypocrisy is not generally a social sin, but a virtue.

There is no substitute for American leadership and exceptionalism.

Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don't do any good, but they don't necessarily do any harm. It's touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I've got my just desserts.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

I would have absolutely messed up 'The Matrix'.

I just love storytelling. I write music to tell stories. So when I'm done writing a song, I take it and go, 'Okay. How can I interpret these lyrics differently?' I love taking lyrics that were so close to me at a certain point in my life and then revamping them. I always want to take things to the next level.

As you know, there are certain languages that lend themselves very easily to vocal use.

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Nobody deserves your tears but whoever deserves them will not make you cry.

I learned everything from that show, so it's just a wonderful memory to me. A lot of people would be embarrassed to admit that they were on 'Barney', but I embrace the fact. I just had such a wonderful time doing that show... I learned what a camera and prop is, and all that. I learned my manners too, so I guess that's a good thing!

When you are brought up as a frozen child, you go on freezing. It wasn't until I had my four sons, who have brought me immense joy, that I began to thaw. That I realised how utterly extraordinary my childhood was.

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.

I do feel like I have always, in my life, been inclined to be on the outside, walk a different path or something. Because of that, and increasingly over the years, my sense of distance from mainstream society or from the way culture works, I have a different kind of perception of it.

There are some images that I will only use once, and not use again because they don't seem to really hit the nail right on the head, but there are some which are so strong they have to be reduced; sometimes just reusing them makes them stronger.