I learned another thing from the hurt my cousin gave me - never to give that kind of hurt to anyone else. My revenge was to change a bad feeling into… - B. B. King

i don't want to give the impression that I fault my father. I don't. The truth is that he's one of my heroes. He's monumental to me. I believed - and still do - that a man must stand in the door of his home and let the wolf get him before the wolf gets his family. The wolf never got my father or his family, and I admire Daddy's guts. He never slacked off work or lied to me or shrugged his responsibilities. He dealt with his family from a distance, but was available, when needed. Eventually I'd do the same. I don't know whether I was copying him or whether, by coincidence, my work, like Daddy's, simply kept me away. All I know is that in many ways, big and small, I've followed my father.

I've said that playing the blues is like having to be black twice. Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed.

The great jazz instrumentalists taught me how to sing and interpret a song. they showed me how a horn can have as much personality as an actor.