Quotes

I've lived very well all my life, even when I had no money, and there's very little I can't afford.

Rock n' roll really belongs to all America. It really doesn't belong to one city.

The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops. That includes the Irving Berlins and the Hoagy Carmichaels, the Harold Arlens, Cole Porter.

My first wife was a theater person.

Flashy people aren't everything, you know. Even when they have frizzled hair.

Everyone felt like they knew Ray Charles and in a way they did, because he was embodied by his music.

As I grew up, I began to discover a little bit about the situation of black people in America and experienced an immediate empathy with the victims of such senseless discrimination. Because although the Turks were never slaves, they were regarded as enemies within Europe because of their Muslim beliefs.

I love Ray Charles. He can still teach everybody a lot about how to make great music. Not necessarily how to make hits, but how to make great music. Of course, part of it is his incredible talent. Who are the greatest jazz singers in the world? Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and Ray Charles.

I'd be happy if people said that I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.

America is remarkable, don't you think so? When I came to Washington, I was twelve years old. I spoke English with an English accent. It was assumed that it would go on in that way.

Jesse Stone did more to develop the basic rock-and-roll sound than anybody else.

I've been in the studio when you go through a track and you run down a track and you know even before the singer starts singing, you know the track is swinging... you know you have a multimillion-seller hit - and what you're working on suddenly has magic.

You know what I'd really like to do? I'd like to record some white Chicago jazz.

There's no place in the world you can go and not hear rock-and-roll, from Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder to Phil Collins.

It is very important that the world know that there have been 500 years of peaceful coexistence in Turkey between the Jews and Moslems.

There is a certain sort of excess that is interesting, don't you think? And America is, of course, the most excessive place.

The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame will provide a center where the lives and the artistry of the greatest jazz musicians will be celebrated, and where people will come to learn about jazz, something to which my brother devoted his life's work.

I don't use the computer. But my secretary does. I want to take some computer courses because I'm interested in some of the access to some of the illegal things on the Internet. I'm just kidding.

Soul lyrics, soul music came at about the same time as the civil rights movement, and it's very possible that one influenced the other.

Unless we abandon elements which resemble a police state, we can't meet the demands of being a modern society.

'Freedom of belief and worship is the most important guarantee of social peace.

Resorting to violence and the use of force at holy sites is unacceptable, whatever the reason might be.

The Muslim world is deeply hurt by the campaign of violence initiated against our Palestinian brothers.

We shouldn't waste any more time in making sure that democracy is properly rooted in our political life and the supremacy of the law becomes an integral part of our state's structure.

I miss my Dad. My Dad loved cheesy monster movies, so we'd have Godzilla movie marathons. Those are some of my favorite memories, laughing at how the monster outfits were so bad, like black garbage bags for heads.