I'm for whatever gets you through the night

The thing that influenced me most was the way Tommy played his trombone. It was my idea to make my voice work in the same way as a trombone or violin-not sounding like them, but "playing" the voice like those instrumentalists.

I play to all people - all colors, all creeds ~ drunk, sober, everybody.

I get an audience personally involved in a song - because I'm involved myself. It's not something I do deliberately: I can't help myself. If the song is a lament at the loss of love, I get an ache in my gut. I feel the loss myself and I cry out the loneliness, the hurt and the pain that I feel.

The best revenge is massive success.

[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 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.