B. B. King

Nobody loves me but my mother – And she could be jivin’, too.

My dad died, I think, at 87. So I’ll be lucky if I make 87. But in a lot of cases, the younger people live longer than their parents. And they know more. My dad used to tell me he ate the hog from his rooter to his tooter. So do I when I’m not trying to lose weight.

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 black. Like, you had Black Monday, Black Friday, black sheep… Of course, everything else, all the good stuff, is white. White Christmas and such.

I’ve known people that was a part of a family and always feel that the family liked everyone else but them. That hurts, and that’s as deep a hurt as you can possibly get. I’ve known people that would have problems with their love life. This is kind of how blues began – out of feeling misused, mistreated. Feeling like they had nobody to turn to. Blues don’t necessarily have to be sung by a person that came from Mississippi as I did, because there are people having problems all over the world.

I’m no good with chords. I’m horrible with chords.

T-Bone was, to me, that sound of being in heaven.

[when asked if she had ever been asked to “sex it up” a little] I’m more of the down-home – I guess, you know, the good-old girl. Being sexy is kind of funny to me. You know, I can get kind of spunky or I can get tough, you know, that kind of tough, sexy look. But sexy? No, I don’t think so. Just what you see is what you get on me. And it’s never been anything of a sexual nature.

[on Matthew McConaughey] He was always taking his shirt off, he’s like Yeah, here’s my deal, I’m hot.” We had a meeting one day at like 11 o’clock, right before the show and he walks into the meeting shirtless wearing this like old musty sarong… He doesn’t smell great, no.

I am extremely square and obedient in nature!

[On taking a pay cut to make a documentary] I could keep trying to do the same kind of comedies. You know how it’s going to go, and you can get an audience with it, but then I feel like a hamster on a wheel.

My grandfather was a farmer so I was always raised that you worked very hard whatever your job is; my sister was a teacher. You’re to be respected if you try hard and try to be good at something and the results are less important. You can’t control that. The more important thing is that you tried your best. But now there’s much more of an intention where some of these kids don’t want to be actors, they want to be famous! Their focus isn’t necessarily on craftsmanship.

I love Scrubs. It’s the best day job in the world.

I don’t think there’s any way it could have failed. We don’t know failure in this band. We didn’t know failure. We got to know it a little after awhile but at that time there was no such word.

I think an extreme thing; I adjust it, I adjust it, I adjust it. That’s the way I get to it, but I have to push to, you know, the furthest concept possible.

I love connecting with people, playing games, music and finding ways to help or give back to communities/organizations…Having my own talk show where I get to do all of these things is pretty much a dream job!

To me, there’s two types of songs, good and bad. And I just like to stick with the good ones.

I never thought that I would have a career in show business…

Most of the time you’re too busy to think about it. But every now and then you say, ‘I work at ‘Saturday Night Live ‘ and that is so cool.

Florida, just because you’re shaped like some combination of a gun and a d*ck doesn’t mean you have to act that way.

I’m very wary of talking about statements. I’m a storyteller, I’m an actor, an entertainer.

A Harvard Medical School study has determined that rectal thermometers are still the best way to tell a baby’s temperature. Plus, it really teaches the baby who’s boss.