“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 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.

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

I came close to signing Elvis Presley. I offered $25,000 for his contract and they asked for $45,000 and I just didn’t have the other $20,000.

We went from apartment to apartment by ourselves. One of the best memories I had was when we moved into our first apartment, no bed, no furniture and we just sat in the living room and just hugged each other. We thought we made it.

His writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls.

When I was 12, I forgot the keys to my parent’s apartment. So I simply climbed up seven floors to get in.

With my hand in his, I looked at all the apartment buildings with rushes of love, peering in the wide streetside windows that revealed living rooms painted in dark burgandies and matte reds.

If it’s putting on a great dance record and rocking out in your apartment, do it. If kissing someone for 10 minutes makes you feel confident, do it.

I’m a teenager, but I’m independent – I have my own apartment, I have my own life.

I love Obama. He’s my favorite president of all time. I have a giant picture in my apartment in New York that is of his Chicago Tribune cover, Mr. President.

What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.