“I was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and no one had ever taught anybody that young, back in those days.”

I got private lessons in keyboard at Julliard, before New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

I don’t listen to a lot of radio today. It’s not really music to me.

You can be enticed by food, wooed by food, sex, money, or instruments.

Woo means the ability to entice someone or something to get what you want. My first solo album was called: All the Woo of the Universe, which was titled by George Clinton.

My mother wanted me to be a concert pianist.

The radios are going to dictate. That’s another fight. That’s another story there. I wish they just let it be.

I was known around the college for jamming in the lounge.

We used to have a main female vocalist. But she had a baby. Now we do the singing ourselves.

Prince presented us at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Usually, I just do what I want, because I got it that way.

I’m not trying to stump anybody… it’s the beauty of the language that I’m interested in.

Anybody who loves country music loves gospel.

I’m the worst person to tell anybody how to date.

A kid who was on welfare, because he refused to steal anybody’s property or take anybody’s money. You found life a lot tougher.

It is far better to be free to govern or misgovern yourself than to be governed by anybody else

Now, I don’t know how they judge all that, but if anybody in the world deserves to be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Ritchie Valens does.

Don’t ever try and be like anybody else and don’t be afraid to take risks.

No-one wants to see anybody fail in life.