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."

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.

I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps

Rock 'n roll smells phony and false. It is sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons and by means of its almost imbecilic reiteration and sly, lewd, in plain fact, dirty lyrics ... manages to be the martial music of every side-burned delinquent on the face of the earth.

For years I've nursed a secret desire to spend the Fourth of July in a double hammock with a swingin' redheaded broad. But I could never find me a double hammock

I'm for whatever gets you through the night

For what is a man, what has he got. If not himself, then he has naught.