I'm not into the money thing. You can only sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat one meal at a time, or be in one car at a time. So I don't have to have millions of dollars to be happy. All I need are clothes on my back, a decent meal, and a little loving when I feel like it. That's the bottom line.

I used to sing like Nat King Cole. I mean he was the guy when I was comin' up, and you know, man, people used to say of me, "Damn, he sure do sound like Nat King Cole." But there was a day, and luckily for me it was early, when I woke up and asked myself, "Well, when are the ask me to sing because I sound like me?" So my advice is, never do anything that you don't like.

It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good.

Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it everything is a blank slate

You never can overwhelm an instrument. You will never get out all that's in an instrument. An instrument will bring you to your limits.

Nowadays they say you need a special chip to put in the TV so kids can't watch this and that. In my day, we didn't need a chip. My mom was the chip. End of story.

I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't been able to hear.