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

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.

The all-time greatest Atlantic group – The Drifters

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.

A singer’s biographical film should have their music and their voice.

It is a great life, this life of music.

You know you have a multimillion-seller hit – and what you’re working on suddenly has magic.

The first time I heard Clyde McPhatter singing with the Dominoes at the Apollo I just fell off my chair

Everyone has his superstitions. One of mine has always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything, never to turn back or to stop until the thing intended was accomplished.

Any astronaut can tell you you’ve got to do everything you can to learn about your life support system and then do everything you can to take care of it.

Quality is everyone’s responsibility.

Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it.

Everyone, no doubt, remains first and foremost a man of his own country and continues to draw from it his motive force.

There’s a way that you can throw negativity out there that seems rebellious. But I’ve always taken pleasure in a different kind of rebellion, which is putting a positive spin on everything, trying to enjoy myself at all times.

Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.

All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height.