It's amazing how much you can learn if your intentions are truly earnest.
Don't let the same dog bite you twice.
If you want to release your aggression, get up and dance. That's what rock and roll is all about.
In a Toyota, the cops don't think about stopping you so much.
I'm thankful for each and every day. We never know when time is up.
Rock's so good to me. Rock is my child and my grandfather.
Music should be made to make people forget their problems, if only for a short while.
I made records for people who would buy them. No color, no ethnic, no political - I don't want that, never did.
Charlie Christian played amplified guitar with Benny Goodman's quartet. He was the greatest guitar player that ever was. But he never looked up from the guitar. But I put a little dance to it. They appreciate seein' something along with hearin' something.
That's all there was in our house: poetry and choir rehearsal and duets and so forth; I listened to Dad and Mother discuss things about poetry and delivery and voice and diction - I don't think anyone could know how much it really means.
The first thing I heard was spiritual music, which was imbedded. The second thing I heard was swing. And shortly, along with that, I began to hear the blues. And then I began to hear Latin music. Each one left its mark.
The media dresses things up. There's a lot of inaccuracy.
I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn't paint.
I would sing the blues if I had the blues.
The world has done nothing to me that I haven't done with the world.
One of my realizations is that if you revel over joy, you're going to ache over pain and get killed over hurt. Your span of feelings are going to go just as far one way as the other.
Of the five most important things in life, health is first, education or knowledge is second, and wealth is third. I forget the other two.
Science and religion are both the same thing. They're there; they're life. If it's not science, it's not a fact.
The Big Band Era is my era. People say, 'Where did you get your style from?' I did the Big Band Era on guitar. That's the best way I could explain it.
Had I been pushed like Colonel Parker pushed Elvis, had I been a white boy like Elvis, sure, it would have been different.
