“I've seen myself on those lists of the 100 best guitarists, and if the...” — B. B. King Quote

“I've seen myself on those lists of the 100 best guitarists, and if they think that I'm that good, thank them. Thank God for them. But I don't think so.”

“As for my band, well, my mentors were Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jimmie Lunceford, and no one had a band more smartly dressed than Duke.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The United States Government has placed me on no-fly lists.”

“I try to sit still for about 15 minutes each morning without making lists or running in overdrive.”

“Women run the small country called Home, millions of us do it in our spare time, and no one who doesn't run that small country really knows what it feels like in the dead of night when task lists jitter like tickertape through your seething brain.”

“I don't let my picture be taken. I'm on too many hit lists.”

“Value will always be on top of everyone's lists now, right along with safety.”

“I keep a writer's notebook and also put all my daily schedules and to-do lists in it.”