“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.”

I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn’t paint.

My music is simple stuff. Anybody can sit down, look at a set of symbols and produce sounds the music represents.

Everything I wrote about wasn’t about me, but about the people listening.

I think I see her, please let me off this bus. Nadine, honey, is that you?

Up come a flat top, he was movin’ up with me.

It used to be called boogie-woogie, it used to be called blues, used to be called rhythm and blues…It’s called rock now.

He could play the guitar just like ringing a bell.

Sometime we’ll try and reach for things we know we each want and don’t deserve.

Music is music and I think music people are the delivers, the actors, when they put their music out they want to insert their character in it. So they call it such and such so you know how they live so to speak.

All were artists, playing foolish, having fights and making love as if the rest of the world had no racial problems whatsoever.

Don’t bother me, leave me alone. Anyway, I’m almost grown.

Actually I’m writing as best I can, in order to keep the momentum and the career there, but I want to live.

Could you imagine the way I felt, I couldn’t unfasten her safety belt. All the way home I held a grudge, for the safety belt that wouldn’t budge.

Rock is rock, and, rock and roll, rock is just short for rock and roll.

Back in the class room, open your books, keep up, the teacher don’t know how mean she looks.

Of the five most important things in life, health is first, education or knowledge is second, and wealth is third. I forget the other two.

I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.

I like any and all of my associations with music: writing, playing, and listening. We write and play from our perspective, and the audience listens from its perspective. If and when we agree, I am lucky.

The audience is the controlling factor in the actor’s life. It is practically infallible, since there is no appeal from its verdict. It is a little like a supreme court composed of irresponsible minors.

You know, an hour and fifty-four minutes is too much for audiences. They get nervous.

No one who has experienced facing a screaming, boiling, hysterical audience can avoid feeling shivers in the spine. It’s a thin line between celebration and menace.

I like making money like anybody else, and I’m paid well, but I think there is a point at which you can out-price your audience or your base.

When I dance I am really meditating rather then performing for an audience.

I’ve never had any idea that what I like would resonate with the audience, and I’m pleasantly surprised when it does.