“The all-time greatest Atlantic group – The Drifters”

If I’d have continued it might have killed me. My doctor said I should stick to wine.

I first heard Laura Branigan sing live in my brother Nesuhi’s apartment, where we had gone because he had a very good piano. I immediately realized that she had a great pop voice, in the classical sense.

I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day, every day, for about 40 years and it never occurred to me it’d kill me.

There’s been so much bad blood between the Kurds and the Turks.

Everybody at Atlantic knew that we had a winner in this young lady, and she came through with great hits that will be remembered for many years to come.

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.

I consider Laura to be one of my best signings, and I am proud to have had such a great singer in my career in the record business. We miss her dearly.

I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.

My first wife was a theater person.

The main thing is that Ataturk saw the desperate condition of the countries that had not had an industrial revolution.

I should have gotten the Beatles. But one of my lawyers kind of messed up.

Another one is Eric Clapton. Another one is Phil Collins. Eminem, Kanye West I like all those people.

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

There are still many great surviving talents: Stevie Winwood. Another great talent is Stevie Wonder.

The songwriters whom we think of being the greatest songwriters usually write one hit and six or seven flops.

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 lifes work.

Political work is the life-blood of all economic work.

One in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest.

Neither the Christian attitude of love for all mankind nor humane hopes for an organized society must cause us to forget that the ‘human stratum’ may not be homogeneous.

Too bad all the people who know how to run this country are busy running taxicabs or cutting hair.

It’s a rule to give all, and it can make the difference if you work more. If you don’t have to give all, and you still win, what’s this?

I look for what needs to be done. After all, that’s how the universe designs itself.

Winning the title in England is the biggest challenge of them all.

All the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.