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

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.

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

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.

In a war, the first casualty is human dignity.

Resolve to edge in a little reading every day if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day it will make itself felt at the end of the year.

Fifty percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent.

Flowers are an easy, eloquent expression of love at a time when words can seem clumsy and inadequate.

You have to trust your kids. They have to experience life, and you just hope you've provided them a foundation for what's right and what isn't.

Julia Roberts taught me how to knit on the set of 'Mona Lisa Smile.'

Is it ever possible to overdo the talking about the glory of Christ? Is it ever too often to be in God's presence?

I love jazz music and sad music.

The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn't happened.