B. B. King

I never use that word, retire.

I was a singing disc jockey who heard every type of music there was – and loved it all.

I don’t feel that no big stone should be put over my head, saying he did this, he did that. Unless there’s something that I really did do. I believe I’m just ordinary. And I’d like for people to think of me that way, as just a guy that tried. Wanted to be loved by other people because he loved people.

I was a regular hand when I was 7. I picked cotton. I drove tractors. Children grew up not thinking that this is what they must do. We thought this was the thing to do to help your family.

Ignorance is bliss? That’s bull, far as I’m concerned. Because I was making a half a cent a side – one penny for a record. It’s like building buses, for example. If you built this bus for me and I didn’t know anything about it, you could charge me whatever I’d pay for it. Now, which one of us is crazy? Me. And that’s the way they did me on the records. But I don’t fault them for it, because if you don’t know, you don’t know. It took me to learn.

When you don’t have much money, you worry that they’ll just put you in the ground someplace and your loved ones won’t know where you are.

You can sometimes get your own feelings across more strongly if you pretend that you’re singing it from someone else’s angle. But it’s always from me. It’s just a new way of framing it.

That had her lip-syncing to a record… There was no protection for her as a person or as an artist…

When David Beckham got a tattoo of Jesus, the response from most soccer fans was, ‘That’s huge for Jesus. That’s a big deal for him’.

I decided I am not going to say things I do not mean anymore.

You can start any Monty Python routine and people finish it for you. Everyone knows it like shorthand.

I’ve had many nicknames over the years: V, Nessa, Nessy Poo, Nessy Bear and Van. Only my parents call me Van, though, and I hate it. I get embarrassed.

I work, and then whenever I have any other time, I’m with my daughter, and then I go to sleep. I think you basically have to abandon the dreams of having any other adult activities in your life. You have to go to sleep whenever your child goes to sleep. That’s basically how we’re doing it.

[on her mom] She always knows what to do to cheer me up. Whenever I feel down, my mom will take me shopping or out to lunch. she’s 100% there for me, and always has been. My family keeps me going no metter what.

The fans are just as crazy. because we have the young fans and the old fans now, so it’s more like double-trouble for us.

The thing about drugs and sex is that you lose all your inhibitions. I’ve had sex in trains, planes, wine bars… and quite a few car parks!

There’s probably not a crew chief out there who hasn’t tried something that seemed like a good idea.

I’m quite obviously not the world’s most handsome man – I’m the second world’s most handsome man!

I’m quite sarcastic, and I’m funny, but not kind of funny. It’s a weird funny, and some people don’t get me, and some people do.

It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.

You know, I get a lot of people pitching songs to me.