I started my career at the top and have been working my way downwards ever since.

My Dad died during the flu epidemic in 1918 when I was 4 years old. He left a lot of classical recordings behind that I began listening to at an early age, so he must have been a music lover.

With sincere modesty, if there is such a thing, I have never thought of legacy at all. I am always grateful if people like what I have done. A legacy is something no one can forsee.

I'm afraid I talk a lot, too much, perhaps. I should have been a lawyer or a college professor or a windy politician, though I'm glad I am not any of these.

When people ask me what I do, strangers on a plane, perhaps, I tell them that I think. Thinking is excellent exercise, as much as swimming or jogging.

I have a great interest in a number of things, perhaps too many. I admire people who seem to concentrate on only one fixed discipline to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Participation, I think, or one of the best methods of educating.

They say poets write mostly for themselves; if anyone else likes it, well and good, if not, it doesn't matter; certainly, not to me.

I wrote the Brotherhood song for no money out of my deep feelings about humanity, and because I was flattered that whatever talents I had, had been recognized.

Most performers don't admit this, because it sounds negative and performers are not supposed to be negative, but when I was on the road, I was lonely.

When I listen to music today, it is about 99 percent classical. I rarely even listen to folk music, the music of my own specialty, because folk music is to me more limited than classical music.

I WANT TO BE WITH SOMEONE WHO DREAMS OF DOING EVERYTHING IN LIFEAND NOTHING ON RAINY SUNDAY AFTERNOONS.

Happiness in marriage is a choice you have to make: fight for, protect, pursue. It doesn't happen to you, you make it happen.

It's as though a smile is ageless, or perhaps eternal, independent of the decay and collapse of the surrounding features.

Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin.

If you talk to any actor, they'll tell you that working is the best thing.

We are a people united by our love for freedom, even when we differ in our personal beliefs. In America, we are free to profess any faith we choose, or no faith at all.

I've been given so much, and if I can just give back a tenth of what I've been given, then it's all worth it.

The insane do not share the normal prejudice in favor of external reality.

The Sun had a good relationship with Frank Bruno. We did lots of interviews. He was a great character, very friendly to the media.

There are elites that are real leaders and role models. There are elites that are really selfish and want to pull up the ladder once they've reached the roof.