The first time I heard Clyde McPhatter singing with the Dominoes at the Apollo I just fell off my chair

Theres two kinds of music: black soul music, and the white imitation thereof.

It is a great life, this life of music.

There's been so much bad blood between the Kurds and the Turks.

Whenever a songwriter writes a big hit, then the next 20 songs they write - no matter how bad they are - get recorded.

I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.

My first wife was a theater person.

The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops.

The all-time greatest Atlantic group - The Drifters

I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day, every day, for about 40 years and it never occurred to me it'd kill me. If I'd have continued it might have killed me. My doctor said I should stick to wine.

My father believed very strongly in Ataturk. Ataturk was a very powerful man and a man of great vision.

Happiness must be grown in one's own garden.

As thou know not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou know not the works of what makes all.

Respect the past in the full measure of its desserts but do not make the mistake of confusing it with the present nor seek in it the ideals of the future.

I never stop working when I'm on stage, and that's my fitness.

Compromise is necessary so long as you never give up who you are. That isn't compromise; that's spiritual death. You have to remain true to yourself.

It's not a real adventure when you have to pay for it.

The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man... not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.

Lately he'd been seen going out less and less, becoming that strangest of animals in a small town: a loner.

Unless you enter the tiger's lair, you cannot get hold of the tiger's cub's.

In the fourth grade, I learned how to fake walking into a door. You know, you hit it with your hand and snap your head back. The girls loved it.