I know more polkas than Frankie Yankovic. I grew up next door to the Polka Tavern in Milwaukee. I can sing some polkas. And proud of that.

Once you discover that you can, then you must.

Before I get out of bed, I am saying thank you. I know how important it is to be thankful.

I would still be singing, because it's part of my heart and my soul, and it lifts me up. Find something you would do for free.

I don't know where we got the notion that God wants us to suffer. Every living thing tends toward the good or we would have been gone a long time ago.

You have to make a decided effort to not get seduced by the Blues.

It's all background experience and listening and exposure. That's why it's so important for people today and during any time to expose your children to lots of different kinds of things.

To sing the ballad with a knowingness about what you are talking about. If it's somebody else's lyric, and the message is a little unusual for you, it requires that you learn that new message.

I sang do-wop on the street corner before it was called do-wop.

I did a concert at five years old in the garden of one of the church members, and we raised some money to buy a new piano in our little church.

That's the way I try to live. I think it's the only way for human beings at this point in our evolution as souls, where everyone in their lifetime is going through stuff.

Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.

Looks like what drives me crazyDon't have no effect on you--But I'm gonna keep on at itTill it drives you crazy, too.

Home is the place that expects the most of you, but still welcomes you at your worst. And she has always been my home, my Merminia.

Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.

Reality shows are usually created by people doing and saying stupid things.

Change is the very basis of our life, not to be fought, to be welcomed and tasted, to be seen for the gift it truly is.

The new Pope, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is now Pope Francis the 1st. Francis was not his first choice for a name. But the Vatican wisely talked him out of Pope Boo Boo.

Whoever you are, you've got to start from where you are. If you're a sailor, and only know sailor's language, well, write in it, for God's sake.

The most successful ideological effects are those which have no need for words, and ask no more than complicitous silence.

What I would say about me is: What you see is what I get.