Ma Rainey famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

If you don't like my ocean don't fish in my sea Stay out of my valley and let my mountain be.
-- Ma Rainey

#Ocean #Sea #Mountain
My audience wants to see me beautifully gowned, and I have spared no expense or pains . . . For I feel that the best is none too good for the public that pays to hear a singer.
-- Ma Rainey

#Pain #Want #Singers
This be an empty world without the blues.
-- Ma Rainey

#World #Empty
They hear it come out, but they don't know how it got there. They don't understand that's life's way of talking. You don't sing to feel better. You sing cause that's a way of understanding life.
-- Ma Rainey

#Feel Better #Talking #Understanding
I can't tell my future, so I'm going to tell my past.
-- Ma Rainey

#Music #Past #My Past
[Advice to Bessie Smith:] Let your soul do the singin'.
-- Ma Rainey

#Music #Advice #Soul
A tune's like a staircase - walk up on it.
-- Ma Rainey

#Music #Tunes #Staircases

On June 10, the worst storm in the series swept across the middle of the Indian Ocean and Wild Eyes was directly in its path.
There are a number of places on marine charts where even the most weathered sailors point and say, "Right there, nothing can go wrong. Everything has to go right." One place is the turbulent passage south of Cape Horn. Another is the dead center of the Indian Ocean.
The open ocean often takes you past your physical limits and when it does, sailing becomes a mental game.
This is my life, I thought...I have excised the cancer from my past, cut it out; I have crossed the high plains, descended into the desert, traversed oceans, and planted my feet in new soil; I have been the apprentice, paid my dues, and have just become master of my ship. But when I look down, why do I see the ancient, tarred, mud-stained slippers that I buried at the start of the journey still stuck to my feet?
This high official, all allow, is grossly overpaid; there wasn't any Board, and now there isn't any Trade.
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
I would that with sleepy, soft embraces The sea would fold mewould find me rest In luminous shades of her secret places, In depths where her marvels are manifest; So the earth beneath her should not discover My hidden couchnor the heaven above her As a strong love shielding a weary lover, I would have her shield me with shining breast.
There's no one who's dropped on top of the mountain. You've got to work your way to the top.
Nothing but mountains filled with barbarous ethnics with views as medieval as their muskets, and unspeakably cruel too
Whoever has not ascended mountains knows little of the beauties of Nature.

Ma Rainey famous quotes

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