At heart, I guess I’m a saloon singer because there’s a greater intimacy between performer and audience in a nightclub. Then again, I love the excitement of appearing before a big concert audience. Let’s just say that the place isn’t important, as long as everybody has a good time.

I love all those girls the same as they love me. I get thousands of letters a week from girls who love me…. Every time I sing a song, I make love to them. I’m a boudoir singer.

Fresh air makes me throw up. I can’t handle it. I’d rather be around three Denobili cigars blowing in my face all night.

You’ve got to be on the ball from the minute you step out into that spotlight. You gotta know exactly what you’re doing every second on that stage, otherwise the act goes right into the bathroom. It’s all over. Good night.

People who make a living off other people’s fortunes or misfortunes are parasites.

Oh, I just wish someone would try to hurt you so I could kill them for you.

I get an audience personally involved in a song – because I’m involved myself. It’s not something I do deliberately: I can’t help myself. If the song is a lament at the loss of love, I get an ache in my gut. I feel the loss myself and I cry out the loneliness, the hurt and the pain that I feel.

When I sing, I believe. I’m honest. If you want to get an audience with you, there’s only one way. You have to reach out to them with total honesty and humility.

Throughout my career, if I have done anything, I have paid attention to every note and every word I sing – if I respect the song. If I cannot project this to a listener, I fail.

With each word, your tenderness grows, tearing my fears apart. And that laugh, that wrinkles your nose touches my foolish heart. Your lovely, with your smile so warm and your cheek so soft, there is nothing for me but to love you.

For years I’ve nursed a secret desire to spend the Fourth of July in a double hammock with a swingin’ redheaded broad … but I could never find me a double hammock.

You can be the most artistically perfect performer in the world, but an audience is like a broad–if you’re indifferent, Endsville.

What formula? I never had one, so I couldn’t say what the main ingredient is. I think everybody who’s successful in this business has one common ingredient; the talent God gave us. The rest depends upon how it’s used.

A man doesn’t know what happiness is until he’s married. By then, it’s too late.

A simple I love you means more than money

A simple I love you means more than money

You may be a puzzle, but I like the way the parts fit.

The martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth.

Don’t get even, get mad.

If you possess something but you can’t give it away, then you don’t possess it … it possesses you.

I like intelligent women. When you go out, it shouldn’t be a staring contest.

People often remark that I’m pretty lucky. Luck is only important in so far as getting the chance to sell yourself at the right moment. After that, you’ve got to have talent and know how to use it.

There are things about organized religion which I resent. Christ is revered as the Prince of Peace, but more blood has been shed in His name than any other figure in history. You show me one step forward in the name of religion, and I’ll show you a hundred retrogressions.

I believe that God knows what each of us wants and needs. It’s not necessary for us to make it to church on Sunday to reach Him. You can find Him anyplace. And if that sounds heretical, my source is pretty good: Matthew, Five to Seven, The Sermon on the Mount.

You only live once, and the way I live, once is enough.

If you don’t know the guy on the other side of the world, love him anyway because he’s just like you. He has the same dreams, the same hopes and fears. It’s one world, pal. We’re all neighbors.

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars.

I think my greatest ambition in life is to pass on to others what I know.

It took me a long, long time to learn what I now know, and I don’t want that to die with me.

What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can.

Stay alive, stay active, and get as much practice as you can.

If power doesn’t mean that you have the opportunity to work with the people that you love, then you haven’t really got any.

Fear is the enemy of logic.

I am a thing of beauty.

I’m not one of those complicated, mixed-up cats. I’m not looking for the secret to life… I just go on from day to day, taking what comes.

That’s life, and I can’t deny it/Many times I thought of cuttin’ out but my heart won’t buy it.

The cigarettes you light one after another won’t help you forget her.

The best is yet to come, and won’t that be fine.

Whatever else has been said about me personally is unimportant. When I sing, I believe. I’m honest.

Regrets, I’ve had a few; But then again, too few to mention.

For nobody else, gave me thrill-with all your faults, I love you still. It had to be you, wonderful you, it had to be you.

You only go around once, but if you play your cards right, once is enough.

There are moments when it’s too quiet. Particularly late at night or early in the mornings. That’s when you know there’s something lacking in your life. You just know.

Don’t hide your scars. They make you who you are.

I’m gonna live till I die.

I would like to be remembered as a man who had a wonderful time living life, a man who had good friends, fine family – and I don’t think I could ask for anything more than that, actually.

Dare to wear the foolish clown face.

Take a deep breath, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

Orange is the happiest color.

Hell hath no fury like a hustler with a literary agent.

I’m for whatever gets you through the night.

You gotta love livin’, baby, ’cause dyin’ is a pain in the *ss.

Basically, I’m for anything that gets you through the night – be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniels.

All day long, they lie in the sun, and when the sun goes down, they lie some more.

May you live to be 100 and may the last voice you hear be mine.

I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as they’re going to feel all day.

Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.

The best revenge is massive success.