Muddy Waters quotes:

Saturday night is your big night. Everybody used to fry up fish and have one hell of a time. Find me playing till sunrise for 50 cents and a sandwich. And be glad of it. And they really liked the low-down blues.

That Mississippi sound, that Delta sound is in them old records. You can hear it all the way through.

China is to stock fraud as Silicon Valley is to technology.

I got up one Christmas morning and we didn't have nothing to eat. We didn't have an apple, we didn't have an orange, we didn't have a cake, we didn't have nothing.

I was so wild and crazy and dumb in my car. It didn't run but 30 miles an hour. You made do.

Robert Johnson? No, I didn't know him, personally.

My grandmother, she say I shouldn't be playing. I should go to church. Fially, I say I'm going do this, I'm going do it. And she got where she didn't bother me about it.

I was always singing the way I felt, and maybe I didn't exactly know it, but I just didn't like the way things were down there-in Mississippi.

I was messing around with the harmonica... but I was 13 before I got a real good note out of it.

I went to school, but they didn't give you too much schooling because just as soon as you was big enough, you get to working in the fields. I guess I was a big boy for my age.

I stone got crazy when I saw somebody run down them strings with a bottleneck. My eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and I said that I had to learn.

I rambled all the time. I was just like that, like a rollin' stone.

Our little house was way back in the country. We had one house close to us, and hell the next one would've been a mile. If you got sick, you could holler and wouldn't nobody hear you.

I wanted to get out of Mississippi in the worst way. Go back? What I want to go back for?

Theres no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, Im playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money.

You get a heck of a sound from the church. Can't you hear it in my voice?

He took my music, but he gave me my name.

Now that I'm gettin' old enough to get some money, I'd like to have some money. I don't get much made, I need to conquer a big chunk of money. Not quit playin' but quit playin' so hard.

I been in the blues all my life. I'm still delivering 'cause I got a long memory.

Of course that was my idol, Son House. I think he did a lot for the Mississippi slide down there.

Ain't nobody's business, if I bark like a dog.

At night in the country, you'd be surprised how that music carries. You could hear my guitar way before you get to the house, and you could hear the peoples hollerin' and screamin'.

Going to Chicago was like going out of the world...

There's no way in the world I can feel the same blues the way I used to. When I play in Chicago, I'm playing up-to-date, not the blues I was born with. People should hear the pure blues - the blues we used to have when we had no money.

Oh, I started out young. They handed me a cotton sack when I was about 8 years old. Give me a little small one, tell me to fill it up. I never did like the farm but I was out there with my grandmother, didn't want to get away from around her too far.

I wanted to definitely be a musician or a good preacher or a heck of a baseball player. I couldn't play ball too good - I hurt my finger, and I stopped that. I couldn't preach, and well, all I had left was getting into the music thing.

Find me playing till sunrise for 50 cents and a sandwich.

I got that first record out, it came out in '47... Then my name began to ring around. I began to take over. From that point, I tell you, Chicago was in my hand, all the more time that those guys had to listen to me.

All the kids made their own git-tars. Made mine out of a box and bit of stick for a neck. Couldn't do much with it, but that's how you learn.

I got your strand of hair, I kiss it day and night.

I went down to my baby's house and I sit down on her steps. She said, now come on in now, you know, my husband just left.

If I had a million dollars, I just wouldn't just completely set back. I'd have to get out there and show my face to all these good people who like me, I have to get out there and show my face. The only thing that would set me back if I get sick or something or pass away, that's all you can do about that you know. But as long as I got my health goin' pretty good, I'll show up around here.

If you got something you don't want other people to know, keep it in your pocket.

Man, you don't know how I felt that afternoon when I heard that VOICE and it was my own VOICE.

Memphis was almost like going to California. Beale Street was the black man's street.

My blues are so simple, but so few people can play it right

Now that I'm gettin old enough to get some money, I'd like to have some money. I don't get much made, I need to conquer a big chunk of money. Not quit playin but quit playin so hard.

The blacks have their parties, hustle a little liquor, get some things together, and I used to play for those peoples. They'd come get me on time, but they wouldn't bring me back on time... Done picked cotton all day, play all night long, then pick cotton all day the next day before I could get a chance to sleep.

The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll.

The thing about San Francisco is that it has this kind of magical quality.

There was a time when I had the blues - I mean I really had it bad. I couldn't pay my light bill and I couldn't pay my rent and I really had the blues. But today I can pay my rent and I can pay the light bill and I still got the blues. So I must been born with 'em... That's my religion - the blues is my religion.