You can't copy anybody and end with anything. If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling.

If you copy, it means you're working without any real feeling. No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough.

The difficult I'll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

I don't think I'm singing. I feel like I'm playing a horn...What comes out is what I feel.

Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.

I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.

Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you - and kill you the long, slow, hard way.

I can't stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession. If you can, then it ain't music, it's close order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.

People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.

A man is only as rich as the number of children he fathers. After all, what else do we leave behind in this world...

Having confidence in yourself breaks the chain of doubt

We need much less than we think we need.

There are always two voices sounding in our ears-the voice of fear and the voice of confidence. One is the clamor of the senses the other is the whispering of the higher self.

Acting is the art of speaking in a loud, clear voice and the avoidance of bumping into the furniture.

[On Marilyn Monroe:] Her body has gone to her head.

I am part of a system which encourages people to buy things and do things which are not to their best interest.

You never know what you'll want to write until it starts writing itself in your head.

I hardly think a girl is much of a threat. I presume you searched her for weapons? But if she attempts to suffocate me with her straw mattress, I promise to call out for help.

Curiosity makes loneliness.