Rock 'n Roll: The most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my misfortune to hear.

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.

Nothing anybody's said or written about me ever bothers me, except when it does.

Most of what has been written about me is one big blur, but I do remember being described in one simple word that I agree with. It was in a piece that tore me apart for my personal behavior, but the writer said that when the music began and I started to sing, I was "honest."

I don't know what other singers feel when they articulate lyrics, but being an 18-karat manic-depressive and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an overacute capacity for sadness as well as elation.

My greatest teacher was not a vocal coach, not the work of other singers, but the way Tommy Dorsey breathed and phrased on the trombone.

You gotta love livin', baby, 'cause dyin' is a pain in the ass.