“All were artists, playing foolish, having fights and making love as if the rest of the world had no racial problems whatsoever.”

Hail, hail rock and roll / Deliver me from the days of old.

Don’t let the same dog bite you twice.

I have so many entities now as grow older you gain responsibilities, you know, real estate, and I like video, and you know I want to live a little you know, because time is passing, its not as long as it has been.

Prejudice doesn’t make me mad. It just – I guess ‘pisses me off’ is the word.

They’re drinkin’ home brew from a wooden cup. The folks were dancin’ there got all shook up.

If the people in the audience are talking, you’re being ignored. If the people are gazing at you, you’ve got something they want to hear.

A contract is an ask game, and if it asks for an hour, and I submit to an hour, then it’s an hour. When I look at a contract, I look at the obligation – where, when, how long, the compensation. If I agree to it, that’s the way it is. I have an obligation. They have an obligation.

Rock is my child and my grandfather.

You don’t just go to the studio and say, ‘I’m going to write a hit.’ It becomes a hit when people like your compositions.

Rock ‘n’ roll accepted me and paid me, even though I loved the big bands I went that way because I wanted a home of my own. I had a family. I had to raise them. Let’s don’t leave out the economics. No way.

Maybellene, why can’t you be true?

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.

Looking hard for a drive in, searching for a corner cafe, where the hamburgers sizzle on an open grill night and day.

Music is an important part of our culture and record stores play a vital part in keeping the power of music alive.

All in all it was my intention to hold both the black and the white clientele by voicing the different kinds of songs in their customary tongues.

I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn’t paint.

The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.

A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.

Do not leave your reputation to chance or gossip; it is your life’s artwork, and you must craft it, hone it, and display it with the care of an artist.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

The artist draws the people. The whole idea is for people to dig themselves, just mingle around meeting different other people. That’s cool.

I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of. Failure brings great rewards – in the life of an artist.

The best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration.

That’s just a part of being an artist: you can’t write great stuff all the time, because if you did, then you’d be inhuman. The human side of people is that sometimes they fail.