I'm not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I'm not looking for the secret to life... I just go on from day to day, taking what comes.

The reading of the song is vital. The written word is first always . . . first. Not belittling the music, but it really is a backdrop. To convey the meaning of a song you need to look at the lyric and understand it.

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.

Should have a Ph.d. on the subject of women. Anyhow the fact of the matter is I've failed usually. I'm exceptionally enamored with women; I respect them. Yet, in the same way as all men, I don't comprehend them.

[Dean Martin] is an absolute, unqualified drunk. And if we ever develop an Olympic drinking team, he's gonna be the coach... Dean Martin has been stoned more often than the United States embassies.

I think my greatest ambition in life is to pass on to others what I know.

To do is to be. -Descartes To be is to do. - Voltaire Do be do be do.