Chuck Berry

A contract is an ask game, and if it asks for an hour, and I submit to an hour, then it's an hour. When I look at a contract, I look at the obligation - where, when, how long, the compensation. If I agree to it, that's the way it is. I have an obligation. They have an obligation.

It's amazing how much you can learn if your intentions are truly earnest.

It amazes me when I hear people say, 'I want to go out and find out who I am.' I always knew who I was. I was going to be famous if it killed me.

That's all there was in our house: poetry and choir rehearsal and duets and so forth; I listened to Dad and Mother discuss things about poetry and delivery and voice and diction - I don't think anyone could know how much it really means.

Science and religion are both the same thing. They're there; they're life. If it's not science, it's not a fact.

Don't let the same dog bite you twice.

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.

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

That's the misconceptions that people have, that Chuck Berry went to jail. They're just totally wrong. It might have said something in the large papers in the bigger city headlines and things. But, you take a look at any of the local papers, and you will see that I was acquitted. I never went to jail.

I would sing the blues if I had the blues.

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

Rock's so good to me. Rock is my child and my grandfather.

The Big Band Era is my era. People say, 'Where did you get your style from?' I did the Big Band Era on guitar. That's the best way I could explain it.

Charlie Christian played amplified guitar with Benny Goodman's quartet. He was the greatest guitar player that ever was. But he never looked up from the guitar. But I put a little dance to it. They appreciate seein' something along with hearin' something.

My dad was the cause of me being in show business. He was not only in poetry but in acting a bit. He was Mordecai in the play 'A Dream of Queen Esther.'

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

You know, your ears record. You might can sing a song once you hear it.

Music is music; you can't change rock and say well this is punk rock and this is acid rock or rockabilly.

A song is a song. But there are some songs, ah, some songs are the greatest. The Beatles song 'Yesterday.' Listen to the lyrics.

In a way, I feel it might be ill-mannered to try and top myself. The music I play is a ritual. Something that matters to people in a special way. I wouldn't want to interfere with that.

My singing days have passed. My voice is gone. My throat is worn. And my lungs are going fast.

I love poetry. I love rhyming. Do you know, there are poets who don't rhyme? Shakespeare did not rhyme most of the time, and that's why I do not like him.

You don't just go to the studio and say, 'I'm going to write a hit.' It becomes a hit when people like your compositions.

Praise doesn't mean anything to me. I don't judge myself.

The music played most around St. Louis was country-western and swing. Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of the country stuff on our predominantly black audience. After they laughed at me a few times, they began requesting the hillbilly stuff.

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

Rock 'n' roll accepted me and paid me, even though I loved the big bands... I went that way because I wanted a home of my own. I had a family. I had to raise them. Let's don't leave out the economics. No way.

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.