I'm glad that my music has helped other people as it's helped me. It makes me glad that I did what I did with my life.

I am what I do, and that's partly why I don't want to give up singing. But when I can't sing well, I will.

How did the land of Jefferson, how did the land of King, become the land of hamburgers and raisins that can sing? Roosevelt was cripple, Lincoln was a geek, they'd never get elected, their clothes were never chic.

I'm living in a world that was created a hundred years ago with vaudeville and people traveling around and medicine shows and things and making live music on stage and I'm still doing that. I like it that way. I like to present something to people that's had 40 years of being honed and perfected. It's something that you're not going to find with an artist who's been around for two or three years, or even ten years.

In a sense, 'American Pie' was a very despairing song but it can also be seen as very hopeful.

Some believe in Jesus, they don't act like they do. Some believe in Mohammed, I don't believe that's true. Cause they do believe in money, and gold is what it's for, all the gold can't buy no peace of mind in a world that don't believe in nothing anymore.

Something touched me deep inside The day the music died.