I had Elvis' number in my book and I never called it.

I worked for a publishing company in Hollywood.

In the Ghetto, I'd been trying to write for years.

I had Elvis' number in my book and I never called it.

I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I'd written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.

I was out on the golf course, a guy came riding out in a golf cart and said, Did you know that Elvis died? And I just said, Well, there you go. It was like I had kinda been expecting it.

I had always wanted to write a song called, The Vicious Circle. I always thought it was like, the kids are born there, they grow up there, they die there.

Elvis was just like a big old kid. It was like he never got past 19, I don't think, in a lotta ways.

First time I saw Elvis was at the Lubbock County fairgrounds in Lubbock, Texas. He was on the back end of a truck. There was about 1500 screaming kids.

I didn't have a lot of communication with Elvis. You had to go through a barricade to get to Elvis. It was people hanging on every word, and I felt very uncomfortable a lot of times.

It's pretty amazing to me that my first hit record was an Elvis Presley record.

I still have an old painting the Colonel gave me. It was the first time the Colonel had been back to the Hilton since Elvis had passed away.

Don't Cry Daddy is a pretty sad song. He got to the end of it and it was just real quiet and Elvis says, I'm gonna cut that someday for my daddy. And, by God, he did. He lived up to his word.

I'm sure that Elvis was happy for me. I think he was the kind of guy that enjoyed other people's success, especially if he had something to do with it.

If it was just me and Elvis one on one, which only happened once or twice in the times that I did see him, it was a really comfortable. He was a cool guy. Easy laugh, nice guy.

Every performer who ever performed in rock and roll or even close to it is lying if they tell you that they weren't influenced in some way or another by Elvis Presley. He turned the world around.

There was a chance for me to write one song for the section where Elvis sat in his black leather outfit and sang the old hits. At eight oclock the next morning I had written Memories.

One of my real goals was to hear someone whistling a song I'd written.

What can I say: I'm a writer - I enjoy forcing pain and suffering on my characters!

Men like Hitler and Stalin and their immediate lieutenants cannot plead in defence of their actions that these were justified by the accepted values of that time.

Theres a moment in fighting when strength of muscle aint everything because the enemy has already given you enough energy to gain the victory.

You'd have to go a long way to find someone who was more proud and grateful for what our veterans have done for all of us.

I said I didn't want to spend most of my life in Holidays Inns, but I've checked and they've all been redecorated. They're marvelous places to stay and I've thought it over and that's where I'd like to be.

I wore dresses all the time. I like to wear dresses.

It is my belief that everything you need to know about the world can be learned in a church choir.

I sustain myself with the love of family.

I'm not like normal people. I'm no good at relationships. I draw drama to me - it's the Jew in me.

I was about sixteen when I discovered that music could get you laid, so I got into music boy, didn't matter what you looked like either, you could be a geeky looking guy but if you played music, whoa, you'd get the girls.

There are people who would rather choke than go see my movies. They write me letters all the time.

I am a chef through and through. Everything I do - whether it is cooking for kids in Harlem or cooking in a fine dining establishment - all my days are consumed by food.

Need we add that mathematicians themselves are not infallible?

Relationships take up energy letting go of them psychiatrists theorize entails mental work. When you lose someone you were close to you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it.

Gangs are a group reaction to helplessness.

I didnt really like my birthday as a kid. My mother used to say Sometimes wed have a birthday party and you would just wander off. But she said it was just my way in the world. It wasnt anything that I was truly interested in.

People don't learn science in movies. You don't go to the movies thinking, 'I hope I learn some quantum mechanics this afternoon.' But on the other hand, movies are instrumental and influential in getting young people interested in science.

Some of the finest Shakespeare has been done recently by college theater programs. I'll tell you what these young kids have: They have a natural authority in Shakespeare. They feel a right to do it. And once they honor the humanity of it, the rhythm of the verse comes with it.

My life has been that of someone who has moved from the countryside to the society. To make that transition, I have had to learn a lot.

My feeling is that scientific method has the power to account for and interlink all phenomena in the universe, including its origin, using the laws of nature. But that still leaves the laws unexplained.

The Internet's a big enough place for everybody to be happy.

People don't realize that the Obama Administration has been, if anything, harder on whistleblowers than the Bush Administration. Part of the reason is that they know that the response will be more muted because the traditional constituency supporting whistleblowers just happen to be the same constituency as Obama's.

It's amazing the clarity that comes with psychotic jealousy.

I'm very big into just feeling good and doing what I want; I'm not very calculated or thoughtful about my moves.