“Back when we was in school in Mississippi, we had Little Black Sambo. That's what you learned: Anytime something was not good, or anytime something was bad in some kinda way, it had to be called bl...”

“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 blues was like that problem child that you may have had in the family. You was a little bit ashamed to let anybody see him, but you loved him. You just didn't know how other people would take it.”

“Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning.”

“I have a nice car, a Mercedes. And then I have an old El Camino truck that I'm crazy about. I like to get in that truck and go up in the hills near where I live, in Vegas, and take my camera. That,...”

“Cotton was a force of nature. There's a poetry to it, hoeing and growing cotton.”

“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for t...”

“You know Balbec so well - do you have friends in the area?'I have friends wherever there are companies of trees, wounded but not vanquished, which huddle together with touching obstinacy to implore...”

“Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying youre friends is easy. Being friends is not.”

“I am the perfect version of me.”

“But if you tame me, then weshall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, Ishall be unique in all the world.”

“I don't want the world to keep turning without me on it.”

“Do not allow yourself to be blinded by fear and anger. Everything is only as it is.”

“Never get angry. If you have to get angry, get angry at yourself and not at others.”

“And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.”