By 1969, when I celebrated 45 years in the music business, I also had 45 people in our musical family.

One thing all stage mothers share is an overpowering ambition for their daughters.

Over and over I marvel at the blessings of my life: Each year has grown better than the last.

Never trust anyone completely but God. Love people, but put your full trust only in God.

There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them.

One time I introduced my orchestra as the Shampoo Music Makers instead of the Champagne Music Makers.

I realized some of the pitfalls of being well-known; it was nice if you were successful, but it made it just that much harder to take when you failed.

I knew nothing of the life of a real musician, of course, but somehow I seemed to see myself standing in front of great crowds of people, playing my accordion.

Night after night I could feel the chills go up and down my spine, they played so well.

Many times I wondered if I were truly carrying out God's plan for my life.

If you put all your strength and faith and vigor into a job and try to do the best you can, the money will come.

If I tell you something Leah, can you keep a secret?" Conor pressed a callused finger across a petroglyph of a deer like a blind man etching memory into his brain.

We all need to play in our part in this

No one has any faith in the tape anymore - everyone just relies on computers and considers the hardrive to be the safest option, and I don't. I think an analog tape is something you can hold.

We're going to continue to see games turned into movies.

Give the respect you want to receive; embody the grace you hope to encounter; and help others with no expectations whatsoever.

Secret bank accounts are for laundering dirty money. Heads of state at the UN should put an end them. That would be the best way of tracking down the drug traffickers.

I set my standards so high, no one could be harsher on me than I was.

I am broadly concerned about the slow death of free speech, but particularly in universities and also with regards to the climate change debate.

Also see how many quarters of corn you will spend in a week in dispensable bread, how much in alms.

I don't have to get a pitch down the middle. If I like the pitch-even if it's 15 inches off the plate, and that's the pitch I wanted-I'm swinging.