The blues is like a planet. It's an enormous topic. You can't ignore the impact that it has had and continues to have on the whole musical culture. It's a tree that everyone is swinging from. Without it, I don't know where I would be. It's indelible and indispensable.

Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.

If you're a writer, you know that the stories don't come to you - you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were.

Apparently the highest compliment our culture grants artists nowadays is to be in an ad — ideally naked and purring on the hood of a new car. I have adamantly and repeatedly refused this dubious honor, ... While the court can't make me active in radio, I am asking it to make me radioactive to advertisers.

Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk.

Any place is good for eavesdropping, if you know how to eavesdrop.