“In my opinion, the biggest achievement was by Shankar-Jaikishan. With Raj Kapoor’s ‘Barsaat,’ they changed the way we looked at playback singing.”

I wouldn’t let a biopic be made on me. That’s because I don’t believe in them. I don’t like them.

From my experience and understanding, I believe money follows name and fame, while recognition calls for a huge amount of sacrifice. To get something, you have to lose something. That’s the rule of life.

I have been singing for the last 50 years, you know, so I deserve a break. Besides, there are talented singers around who can do justice to their work.

My father passed away in 1942, and three-four months after his death, I had to start working. There was a responsibility on my shoulders to run the household. It was my duty as the eldest child in the house.

There are so many songs that I could not sing the way I wanted to. When such songs come on television or radio, I shut them off or leave the room.

For me, awards are a token of respect that people are giving me. So no matter how many awards I am receiving, I always feel emotional.

As a singer, you have to bring the soul to the song.

Today, the scope for variety has shrunk drastically. There are only a handful of topnotch composers like A. R. Rahman, Anu Malik, Jatin-Lalit that’s it.

I appreciate the change associated with people’s growth, but I don’t like the changes in our lives. I came to Mumbai in 1945, so imagine my acceptance of the massive changes around. I have witnessed every kind of revolution.

The privileged classes today are bothered about petrol and diesel prices while the poor can’t afford two meals a day. I am a very small person, but I want us to think beyond personal and regional interests.

Nowadays, there are seven music directors in one film. I had never heard of such a thing before. If one of our old music directors was told to share a score with others, he would have left the assignment.

I believe in one power, and that is the hand of God. I respect all religions.

I’ve always loved life, irrespective of all the ups and downs that have filled my journey.

When I started out, there was so much work that I couldn’t think of doing anything else. I would go for recordings by 8.30 A.M., that, too, in trains. I used to come home at night. I was travelling alone everywhere.

I have decided that I won’t take up assignments that don’t interest me.

People, who accused me of practising a monopoly were wrong. The media fuelled rumours about my ‘monopoly.’ The first question I was always asked during interviews was about my supposed monopoly.

The starting point of all achievement is desire.

Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements.

Men can be divided into 2 groups: one that goes ahead and achieves something, and one that comes after and criticizes.

Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. Every job is a self portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence.

To achieve something you have never achieved before you must become someone you have never been.

A man ought not to value himself of his achievements or rare qualities of wit, much less of his riches, virtue or kindred.

Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.

Achievement has no color.