Quote Of The Day By Buddy Guy: 'If I Do Something To Make People Smile ...'

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Born in 1936, Buddy Guy was 7 years old when he made his first guitar, which had just two strings. He made his way from Louisiana to the clubs of Chicago in the late 1950s, where he wowed officials at the Chess label enough that he was signed up. He took part in sessions with blues legend Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, but while Chess had no real interest in Guy's unique sound and style, British musicians, including Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger, helped put him on the musical map.

After leaving Chess for the Vanguard label, Buddy Guy enjoyed decades of success at home and abroad, playing his kind of music his way. The 1991 album "Damn Right, I've Got the Blues" earned him the first of nine Grammys (though we think his second studio LP, "A Man and the Blues," is one of 10 vinyl records every blues fan should own), while other honors include the Presidential National Medal of Arts and the Billboard Magazine Century Award. In 2025, Guy was introduced to a new audience thanks to a cameo in the Oscar-winning horror film "Sinners." 

During Guy's long career, the son of sharecroppers has overcome poverty, racism, and indifference to become an icon of American blues whose first priority is to please his audience. That's why he's our quote of the day.

"Well, I love what I'm doing. And, you know, the world is so mad now at everybody. If I do something to make people smile, I'm going to say, I got you. For that moment, if it don't last, I made you forget about the other thing you might have been thinking about."

Buddy Guy's quote came from a 2012 interview with PBS News Hour to publicize his autobiography, "When I Left Home: My Story," which was released that year. In the interview, Guy opened up about his life and career, from growing up without electricity or running water to his burning desire to keep the blues tradition alive.

Guy's unswerving belief that there's so much more to the blues than sadness gives hope to anyone who is angry at the world. Even though it's fleeting, someone else's joy can be an antidote to life's frustrations.

Buddy Guy's quote is a generous — and perhaps for some, surprising — invitation. Considering the hardship he faced, he's the one who should be angry. Guy grew up in the cotton fields, almost starved in Chicago, and institutional racism in the music industry and beyond threw up plenty of professional roadblocks for years. Yet he has always sought to use his music to make other people happy.

The musician repeated the sentiments behind his quote to Alan Paul in 2018: "If I look out there and see somebody with a frown on their face I know I have work to do," adding, "I feel much better by making somebody else lose their anger. I'm not angry at anybody ... Some people are angry and don't even know what the hell they angry about. I save it for the stage."

If someone who has endured as much as Guy is eager to offer a shared experience that has the single aim of making us feel better, how can we refuse? That moment of joy wouldn't just be a respite from anger — it might also inspire us to find a positive solution.

• "I don't know nothing else to do but play music."

• "I was brought up to believe what's for you gonna come for you. What's not for you, you not gonna get it anyway."

• "I grew up on the farm. There's no such thing as a pool table on the farm, man. You had a hole where you chopped cotton. That's the only stick I had." 

• "I always hung around with men 20 or 30 years older than me, because I figured I could learn something from them. I couldn't learn nothing from nobody my age because I knew what they knew."

• "Blues musicians don't retire. They drop."