If you think about it, Aretha did basically the same things that I do.

Life is too short to harbor any hostilities towards anybody.

I never want to fake it. That's my whole thing.

It doesn't mean that I won't be sexy or hip or anything like that.

The line between greatness and obscurity is very, very small.

In the last couple of years I've been picking up my guitar again.

But my attitude about it is I have miles to go before I sleep.

I mean, on the food chain, do instruments really rate? I don't think so.

Music should probably provide answers in terms of lyrical content, and giving people a sense of togetherness and oneness, as opposed to being alone in their thoughts and dilemmas or regrets or happiness or whatever.

I like that sense of we're all on the same page and trying to get the job done.

There was a time in American history when almost every white person knew who Aretha Franklin was.

I think you create your own hipness.

I adore being with Roberta. I adore being in her spiritual light. I adore being close to her talent and gifts.

I have to choose songs that represent my personality.

If you think about it, everything we do in life is set to some kind of music.

There weren't any white people in this country who didn't know who Gladys Knight was. Or the Pips were, as far as that's concerned.

I'm having fun just being a musician as well as an artist at this point.

I'd sing with Roberta Flack in a taxi if you called up and said she'd be in it.

For me, the other thing is not just a strong sense of spirituality.

If you have a Stradivarius and nobody to play it, it's just a Stradivarius. Or is it even that? It's nothing.

Trends don't mean very much.

I'm not angry at anyone.

If you think about it, Aretha did basically the same things that I do.

Every significant event that takes place in our lives is set to some kind of music.

Life is too short to work so hard.

I don't have to be what nobody else wants me to be and I am not afraid to be what I want to be.

Guitar music or rock n' roll or whatever you want to call it sort of goes away with trends, but it'll never go away completely. It can't die because it's so fundamentally attractive.

I am the American Dream. I am the epitome of what the American Dream basically said. It said you could come from anywhere and be anything you want in this country. That's exactly what I've done.

Whatever I am, it's natural... I don't have to pretend to be aggressive, don't have to show the opposition that I am on the field. Being aggressive comes naturally to me, helps me perform.

You show up in Paris, and on the drive from the airport to the hotel you're like, 'This is so cool! I want to see something! I want to go to the Eiffel Tower!' And then you leave the next morning. You think, Oh, I didn't get to do anything. I tell people: I've been just about everywhere, but I've seen nothing.

The pressures for human cloning are powerful but although it seems likely that somebody at some time will attempt it we need not assume that it will ever become a common or significant feature of human life.

When I'm not hitting, I don't hit nobody. But, when I'm hitting, I hit anybody.

I did nothing but dramas for seven years in New York. I didn't really start anything comedic until I moved out to L.A. and found The Groundlings.

The city has become a serious menace to our civilization... It has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant.

I've been having this really weird anxiety dream about arriving too late or too early, and the people in charge are like, 'You have to leave! You have to go back to the hotel and get ready!' And I use the wrong exit, and I'm running down the red carpet in pyjamas, like, 'No! Don't look at me!'

My stepfather gave me a Kodak camera when I was 17 years old. I started working at a local photo store in Le Havre, France, taking passport pictures and photographing weddings.

I love Indian food, and my favourite dish is dal rice.

As a director, my job is, and always has been, divided into a number of things: dealing with the crew, the money and the studio, and the marketing and publicity. These are all different jobs that have to be learned and done as well as possible. The celebrity part rarely touches a director.

I'm one of those people at the airport holding a pillow like a little kid.

I think computers are the ultimate writing tool. I'm a very slow writer, so I appreciate it every day.

When you do life a certain way, it's bound to give you a higher level of probability to succeed, and that's what we preach.

When I left Merrill Lynch, one of the things that upset me the most wasn't losing my job. It was not being able to see those people the following day. It was almost like divorcing 40 people.

Americans are big boys. You can talk them into almost anything. Just sit with them for half an hour over a bottle of whiskey and be a nice guy.

I think the time is ripe for a return to the refinement of lifestyle that the pocket watch embodies. A personal pleasure that you know you have in your pocket, which requires an elegant gesture to use and show to others.

Have you ever thought about it, about simply leaving? Really, truly thought about it with the intent to follow through and not as a dream or a passing fancy?

I consider myself very lucky. God has a funny way of bringing some things around and knocking you in the head with the ultimate destination. Something I should have achieved quite easily took me a long time to get around to. It came in His time, not mine.

What a lot of people don't realize about gangs, in my opinion, is that a gang is not there to attack you. Eighty percent of the people in a gang are there to stop anyone from attacking them. You join a gang for protection, not to go out and hit someone.

He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves.