A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His fac…

- William Christopher Handy

With a guitar I would be able to express the things I felt in sounds.

- William Christopher Handy

If my serenade of song and story should serve as a pillow for some composer's head, as yet perhaps unborn, to dream and build on our fond melodies in…

- William Christopher Handy

You'll never miss the water 'til the well runs dry.

- William Christopher Handy

You can never tell what's in a woman's mind, And if she's from Harlem, there's no use o' tryin

- William Christopher Handy

The blues - the sound of a sinner on revival day.

- William Christopher Handy

Life is like a trumpet - if you don't put anything into it, you don't get anything out of it.

- William Christopher Handy

In the South of long ago whenever a new man appeared for work in any of the laborers gangs, he would be asked if he could sing. If he could he got th…

- William Christopher Handy

I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro.

- William Christopher Handy