B. B King Quotes

What don't I want to learn? I have how-to books, history, nature. Ain't nobody here saying, 'You'd better learn this.' But I still think I've got a head on my shoulders, and it pleases me.

I used to play – when I first started trying to be professional, I disk jockey from 1949 to 1955 in Memphis, Tennessee, and I was quite popular there as a disk jockey.

I'm trying to get people to see that we are our brother's keeper. Red, white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, we all have the blues.

When I was in the country and I was trying to play, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to me. People used to say, 'That's just that ole blues singer.'

Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do and then just go for it. I never know what the public's going to like, anyway.

I've put up with more humiliation than I care to remember.

It seems like I always had to work harder than other people. Those nights when everybody else is asleep, and you sit in your room trying to play scales.

People all over the world have problems. And as long as people have problems, the blues can never die.

If you want to be a good blues singer, people are going to be down on you, so dress like you're going to the bank to borrow money.

The way I feel today, as long as my health is good and I can handle myself well and people still come to my concerts, still buy my CDs, I'll keep playing until I feel like I can't.

Whenever I'm in Kansas City, I think back to all the jazz-blues greats who played the blues here – like Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Jay McShann. I watched those guys jam in different places and heard a lot of things – but I couldn't do what they did. They were too good.

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I never wanted to sing. I just wanted to play rhythm guitar – hide in the back and just play.

You always have to think in a new modern way, and you always have to push yourself in fashion because it's a big treadmill. You can't really get off it. You just have to move a little faster.

I'm pretty sure my mom is the only person on the planet who thinks that she got cancer so that I could find my calling in life, but as I started to build this company, all my years of useless education, random jobs, and weird interests merged into this serendipitous moment.

I wanted to create a movement and a safe space for people to come and find their 'cancer home.'

I naturally wanted to be saved, so when I came home I told my mom I wanted to be confirmed. That's the way I related to it, being raised an Episcopalian. I went to Dallas and got confirmed.

B. B King Quotes

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