A Quote by John Lee Hooker

All my life I been doin' what people tell me to do. Now, I'm telling them. — © John Lee Hooker
All my life I been doin' what people tell me to do. Now, I'm telling them.
You can read minds, and you didn't tell me?” Link stared at me like he just found out I was the Silver Surfer. He rubbed his head nervously. “Hey, man, all that stuff about Lena? I was yankin’ your chain.” He looked away. “Are you doin’ it now? You're doin’ it, aren't you? Dude, get out of my head.” He backed away from me and into the bookshelf. “I can't read your mind, you idiot.
From my mom telling me 'no' to now telling everyone I'm the champion, and she's so proud of me, and to prove to a lot of people - who didn't believe in me, who didn't think I was going to be here - that I'm here, and I did it. It's been a roller coaster of emotions; it's amazing.
People have always been telling me what I can't do. I guess I have wanted to show them. That's been one of my driving forces all my life.
I get letters from young people telling me that they're broke and download my albums for free. They ask me what I think about that. I now have a standard line. I tell them, 'I would rather be heard than paid.'
I like the purity of telling stories now because not a lot of people are telling stories in their music. I wanna tell my specific story: what I see right now.
People tell me they idolise me, want to be like me, but I tell them, 'trust me, you don't want my life.' I've been a very tortured soul.
My music always been based off telling stories and now I really got a lot of stories to tell about my life, what my family went through, what my people went through.
The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I'm doin' now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.
Be careful what you get good at doin', cuz you'll be doin' it for the rest of your life.
Recently, my personal advisors have been telling me to go to America. Actually, people have been walking up to me in the street and telling me to sod off, but that's the same thing, isn't it?
Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy, but now they call this free will. At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.
For me, I go in and play a few Christian songs for an audience, and now I have people come up and not tell me I'm great, but tell me that my music is helping save their lives, helping them in the Lord, and helping them end their vices.
I've never been willing to lie about my age. Why on earth would I want to tell people I'm 35, which I'm not, and have them say, 'Oh that's nice,' when I could tell them I'm 47, which I am, and have them look at me and go, 'Whoa!'. I'm not afraid of aging. I stopped being afraid of life a long time ago.
Now, there are people that are Christian artists, because they have a purpose to be evangelical for Christ. I don't feel I've been called to that yet. Now, that could change. There's no telling what kind of call God will put on my life.
I'm a young dude, and there ain't too many people who are doin' it like I'm doin' it. There ain't no others in my lane - I am the future of this music.
For 6,000 years, these rules have been unquestionably right. And yet we break them every day. People feel that something is wrong in life. There is some kind of atmosphere that makes people now turn to other values. They want to contemplate the basic questions of life, and that is probably the real reason for wanting to tell these stories.
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