“The ocean doesn’t want me today, But I’ll come back tomorrow to play. The riptide is waging And the life guard’s away But the ocean doesn’t want me today.”

I always had a great appreciation for jazz, but I’m a very pedestrian musician. I get by. I like to think that my main instrument is vocabulary.

There’s a beauty of show business. It’s the only business you can have a career in when you’re dead.

it ain’t no sin, to take off your skin and dance around in your bones

Well you say that it’s gospel, But I know that it’s only church.

Arithmetic arithmetock Turn the hands back on the clock How does the ocean rock the boat? How did the razor find my throat? The only strings that hold me here Are tangled up around the pier.

All the donuts have names that sound like prostitutes

Did the devil make the world while God was sleeping?

You can learn a lot about a woman by getting smashed with her.

The way you do anything is the way you do everything.

But it’s so hard to dance that way when it’s cold and there’s no music.

I like my music with the rinds and the seeds and pulp left in.

I don’t like hearing Beatles songs in commercials. It almost renders them useless. I think, ‘Oh God, another one bites the dust.’

Don’t look back, because someone might be gaining on you.

It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.

You learn as much from your kids as they learn from you.

They say that I have no hits and that I’m difficult to work with. And they say that like it’s a bad thing.

Guard yourself against accusations, even if they are false; for the multitude are ignorant of the truth and look only to reputation.

Here you are, another heartache to guard under my wings as I wait wondering when it’ll be time for me to fly.

You are the guardian of your own happiness. So guard it.

Flowers crown her with thorns, keeping her mind entrapped in a garden of lies – guarding her mind.

There are evil spirits who suddenly fix their abode in man’s unguarded breast, causing us to commit devilish deeds, and then, hurrying back to their native hell, leave behind the stings of remorse in the poisoned bosom.

If through your vices you afflicted are, Lay not the blame of your distress on God; You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards, So now you groan ‘neath slavery’s heavy rod.

You have to stand guard over the development and maintenance of democracy, Islamic social justice and the equality of manhood in your own native soil.

Having bodyguards is just part of being famous, I think.