I think of these things as obstacles rather than opportunities, because if they were opportunities it means I actually took the business of doing them seriously. To take myself too seriously is the gentle kiss of death.

What I do and what I record only work for the moment.

I'm sad and blue, about nobody but you. I told you that I loved you right from the start, you told me the same and now you try to break my little heart.

Lonesome. Lonesome. I know what it means. Here all by my lonesome, dreaming empty dreams. Weary. Weary at the close of day, wondering if tomorrow brings me joy or sorrow.

I think of these things as obstacles rather than opportunities, because if they were opportunities it means I actually took the business of doing them seriously. To take myself too seriously is the gentle kiss of death.

It can even be a single note which defines the entire song.

Who told you I was a musician?

I extract what I consider the best material from different sources. But often the material I perform comes from a very strange location in history, which are minstrel shows.

Home is where you hang your hat.

I don't do anything mysterious on purpose. I'm less than forthcoming, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm mysterious. It just means I'm not inclined to go there.

I don't have a home. I'm on the road, more or less.

I don't think music should be played anywhere near politics. The two don't go together.

I got out of the music industry many years ago. I had a charlatan for a producer who I wanted nothing to do with. He's dead now, so I guess I can't beat that horse any more. It left a very bad taste in my mouth, so I just went on about my business doing what I do and not involving myself with record companies, except for distribution.

I have a visual sense for the music. It has to stay true to a certain sense of period. I rely on a sense of colors and mood in my approach to the arrangement.

I just do a random roulette wheel version of what I've recorded or sometimes tunes I haven't recorded. It's a collection of whatever happens, happens.

I tend to notice work.

I think there's a preoccupation with the American market to make excuses and justify its past. If it isn't current, it means somebody has to make an excuse for it. If it's 'cult,' it gives it a sense of illegitimate legitimacy.

I would like to speak 10 languages.

I'm not interested in stirring anybody up through music. If you're going to stir people up, it has to be a thought process that has nothing to do with music. I see music as having to do with an internal thing. Something that stirs you up is external.

I've got a very behind-the-scenes personality. I don't know how I became a performer. I like to stay discreet, out of the public eye, very low-key.

If I had mastered the Spanish language to any extent, I might have gone in that direction.

If you're not interested in history, if you're living for the day, you need some sort of cliche hook. I certainly don't think of myself as a cult anything. It's a strange thing to even consider pursuing.

Music doesn't really require whether the person's a young person or old person for whatever kind of music it is.

My views on music, and life in general, are completely out of step with everything that's going on. I've always been out of step. The only thing that interests me is history, reviewing the past and making something out of it.

Other musicians are basically personalities who want to make a name for themselves. All I do is sing old songs in the best way I can. What else is there to know? If you were a blacksmith, what would people need to know about you other than whether you can make a good horseshoe?

The only thing that interests me is history - reviewing the past and making something out of it.

There's a little Christmas in all of us, I guess. Even in me.

Natural resources are so vast that no single individual or business is going to protect them; they don't have an incentive to.

The bronze powder business, however, no longer required my personal attention, and was well managed by those I had chosen as the guardians of a secret, which was long and honourably kept.

I have done things politically, and I've been running a business at the same time, but I sort of joke that to some extent I do more than most legislators have done in their whole careers, and I've been doing it as a part-time job.

Howard Hughes himself was a regular at the restaurant, and in a way it became his headquarters, too. Howard had recently relocated to Las Vegas, so when he wanted to do business in Los Angeles, he went into the back of our restaurant to use the telephone.

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.

We mean by "politics" the people's business - the most important business there is.

Slovakia's joining the OECD in 1999 is totally dependent on meeting economic reforms required such as transparency and legislation that permits fair and open conduct of trade and business.

The way the business things work in Russia is you have to meet people, you have to go through a certain amount of etiquette and business things are done just simply by a shake of the hand and whether they like you or not.

I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value.

It costs a great deal of money to do a musical, and the more money involved, the more big business influences the artform.

It's a very hard and competitive business in which you have to fight every day in order to impose yourself.

I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today.

Chicago kept industry, attracted new business, became the center for convention trade and transportation.

I have been, and will go on, fighting that damnable, dirty, rotten business with all the power at my command.

All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

I knew an actor's career goes up and down and back up again. Your standing in this business can't be your whole identity; otherwise, you're doomed.

The surest way to return to the people's business is to listen to the people themselves: We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt.

Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.

You have to be a star to be in this business.

The government must do all it can to help reduce interest rates for business.

Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it's business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don't love what you're doing and you can't give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You'll be an old man before you know it.