You can be in this business 50 years and still not know anything about it.

You don’t swing where you sleep.

I have a respect for Elvis and my friendship. It ain't my business what he did in private. The only thing I want to know is, 'Was he my friend?', 'Did I enjoy him as a performer?', 'Did he give the world of entertainment something?' - and the answer is YES on all accounts. The other jazz just don't matter.

I've done some things I wish I could erase. . . . I invented mistakes. But the mistakes must be seen in context, and they must be weighed along with the positives.

Being in public with May and the children was too heavy. I was irreversibly tuned in to everyone around us.

The manic pursuit of success cost me everything I could love: my wife, my three children, some friends I would have liked to grow old with.

My talent was the weapon, the power, the way for me to fight. It was the one way I might hope to affect a man's thinking.