You have to show violence the way it is. If you don’t show it realistically, then that’s immoral and harmful. If you don’t upset people, then that’s obscenity.

I took guitar lessons in ’58. To find someone to teach you to play rock and roll then was rough. I had to figure it out on my own.

Is it a crime, to fight, for what is mine?

I really have the American dream licked.

My hope is that out of all the anger and seeming hostility that we hear in some of today’s music will come some sort of coalition that will become politically involved.

The hardship of living in a refugee camp made me psychologically strong.

You know, on the road, I never miss a meal. I eat five, six, seven times a day, depending on when I wake up and when I got to sleep. I never miss a training...

I look back to when I got divorced in the late 1970s. When that happened, I was so broken up. After that, I decided to seek God for my life and my next marriage.

Every time we’ve gone somewhere, it’s just been better and better and God’s always blessed us for following.

I’m not looking to set a standard… but, I believe I have offered a challenge to others with my work.

I met my wife in Washington, D.C. I was a senior in college. WW II was about to descend upon us. Jobs were starting to open up after a prolonged depression.

If you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you.

It was like an honor thing for me to meet 50 cause I respected his whole story.

Ozzy has dyslexia.

In that situation, I feel like I should have been acquitted the first time around. And, it wasn’t a case. There wasn’t no evidence on me.

They think the banjo can only be happy, but that’s not true.

A poem is a naked person… Some people say that I am a poet.

You never know when you put out an album that’s unique whether it’ll get beat up for it or not.

To set the record straight for the God knows millionth time, we certainly didn’t sign to Atlantic just for the money.

The same things go on everywhere, whether you’re from the city, the country or wherever.

But primarily, the drummer’s supposed to sit back there and swing the band.

I never solicited a major label and I certainly wouldn’t now.

Everybody came in to see Suicide to be entertained, and all we did was give them back the street, in all its glory, and that’s what they hated us for.

As a matter of fact they’d blacken us down. I guess there’s a reason that according to what the Caucasian wanted us to look like. He wanted us to look-if we were Black, then he...

I choose to express myself.

Look, jazz has always had, because of its origins, that’s the only reason. It’s the only reason it’s like that. Where it came from. It’s not accepted.

No thesaurus can give you those words, no rhyming dictionary. They must happen out of you.

Exactly, especially when you’re talking about a music where you can do just about anything. We can talk about just about anything lyrically.

Death is an awful thing. I don’t believe in it myself.

That was the biggest thrill, going over to these guy’s houses and having them want me to practice with them and they would show me a lot of stuff, which was really advanced stuff to...

A good country song takes a page out of somebody’s life and puts it to music.

I hope I didn’t bore you too much with my life story.

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin’ now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

I began hearing rumors of apossible recording session with Neil Young. I was a huge fan of Neil’s.

We thought that’s the way you were supposed to be if you were in a rock ‘n’ roll band. Flamboyant.

We went to Big Sur about three years ago and hung out at the Esalen Institute.

With or without a Social Security fix, Americans don’t have enough assets to retire on. There has to be a much larger debate.

It sounds really stupid, I hate making cosmic comments like this but, I just let it do what it wants to do.

No, I’ve heard over the years that it’s nice for them to see somebody who’s like, you know, a well-known successful musician who’s Asian. I’ve heard it from a few musicians, too.

I’m proud of being part Cherokee, and I think it’s time all us Indians felt the same way.

I won all the blue ribbons for canning at the state fair.

Who wants to be married to a grandfather?

My love life doesn’t stink; it’s nonexistent.

My drum sticks are in the “Hall of Fame.” I know that.

When I’m at home I practice everyday.

But in those days – in the mid-’50s, early ’60s – there was less than 300 radio stations that were playing country music and a lot of that wasn’t full time.

My talent for playing the drums was a gift from God.

It can get a little costly if you try and leave it until then to write songs. But you’re writing all the time. You’re collecting songs. I’ve had songs that have been collected over a...

Geez, I wish I could tell you I had a whole bunch of ’80s hair bands, you know something you really wouldn’t expect, but I don’t know that the music police would be that surprised,...

I’m not unknown, yet I’m not super famous where I can’t go anywhere.