“Rock is my child and my grandfather.”

Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering “who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?”

I would sing the blues if I had the blues.

Describe Elvis Presley? He was the greatest who ever was, is or ever will be.

It’s gotta be rock and roll music, if you wanna dance with me.

Music is music; you can’t change rock and say well this is punk rock and this is acid rock or rockabilly.

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.

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.

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.

In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.

It takes so little to make a child happy, that it is a pity in a world full of sunshine and pleasant things, that there should be any wistful faces, empty hands, or lonely little hearts.

If your child marches to a different beat, a different drummer, you might just have to go along with that music. Help them achieve what’s important to them.

What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?

Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad, but babies never are.

A child born to a Black mother in a state like Mississippi… has exactly the same rights as a white baby born to the wealthiest person in the United States. It’s not true, but I challenge anyone to say it is not a goal worth working for.