With few exceptions, every major pop singer in the US during her generation has been touched in some way by her genius. It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me. Lady Day is unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last twenty years.

Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.

The best is yet to come, and won't that be fine? You think you've seen the sun, but you ain't seen it shine.

That's life,and I can't deny it/Many times I thought of cuttin' out but my heart won't buy it.

I firmly believe that nuclear war is absolutely impossible. I don't think anyone in the world wants a nuclear war - not even the Russians.

I'm just a singer, Elvis was the embodiment of the whole American culture.

You treat a lady like a dame, and a dame like a lady.