“America lost its face with the debacle of the Vietnam War.”

“As long as my voice is here, and there is a Holiday Inn waiting for me, then everything's just swell.”

“As long as those pretty girls notice me, I don't care if they say, 'Ghastly, horrible'... I live for the beautiful angels.”

“Believe it or not, I'd love to go to the moon.”

“Better to marry unhappily 100 times than to live happily forever in sin.”

“Boy George was only 7 years old when I was hot in '68.”

“Death is never polite, even when we expect it.”

“Don't bury me with anyone old.”

“I always wanted to be a big star.”

“I am ready for anything that happens.”

“I believe that President Nixon was right in what he did at Watergate. Lack of respect for authority and things like socialism are turning this into a weak, effeminate country.”

“I don't believe in birth control.”

“I don't believe in Women's Liberation. No, no, no, no, no. Not at all.”

“I don't know why, but I felt as if I was always behind the eight ball, so to speak.”

“I don't want people to think lm hypocritical.”

“I had this old wind-up phonograph when I was a kid, and I'd listen to records. And the radio.”

“I hope I don't give music a bad name.”

“I keep recording and recording, but they always stay on the rack and never get out there.”

“I knew that someday I would be discovered.”

“I love the past. I read about the past all the time.”

“I read in one of the scandal sheets that there are UFO aliens living right now down deep in the Antarctic. I believe those things.”

“I remember in '37 when trolley cars were so big in New York. It was five cents for a ride... There used to be open-air buses, and you could go up a spiral staircase and sit up on top. Those were great, great days.”

“I saw 'Cynthia' five times.”

“I think they should give me a spot on 'Dallas' or 'Dynasty' or one of those shows.”

“I want to get a hit record, and I know I can be good in horror movies.”

“I was in Australia in 1983 and did a stunt in a lion's cage.”

“I was trying to find an original style that didn't sound like Tony Bennett or anyone else. So I prayed about it, woke up with this high voice, and by 1954, I was going to amateur nights and winning.”

“If the cap ain't on my Crest, if it's squeezed from the middle and not the bottom, there's a problem.”

“If the club was empty, I sang to the chairs.”

“If you go back to the minors, you have to start swinging and hitting the ball again. I've been in the minors since the '70s semipros, let's put it that way.”

“I'm a very difficult person to live with.”

“I'm like a pitcher. I'm either on or off.”

“I'm the first has-been star singer ever to sing with the circus. I mean, Presley sang with the circus, but that was before he became a star.”

“I'm the type of person, I cannot waste time.”

“In order to have a TV series, you have to have a good idea for the story.”

“In this business, you gotta hustle.”

“It was not easy to go into a subway in 1955 at eight o'clock in the morning smelling nice and hanging on the rails with white make-up. I could see people nudging each other saying, 'What is that?'”

“My parents had to work hard, and I was always looking for a way to make it big - for their sakes as well as my own.”

“Remember, it's better to be a has-been than a never-was.”

“Some of the best things in life cost just USD2.”

“The biggest blunder in the history of this country was when President Truman pulled General MacArthur out of China.”

“The devil reigns in me more than in any man I can think of.”

“The only thing I pray for is the strength to go out without complaining.”

“The only thing I think of is the next hit record.”

“There are a lot of ups and downs. But there are always people who have it worse.”

“There is nothing like youth.”

“They say I spend too much money, so they take it and put it away for me. What do I spend it on? Oh, old records and presents and things.”

“We hear about the Gershwins, the Kerns, and the Berlins, but there were some great little writers like Theodore Morse, Charles K. Harris, and Ernest R. Ball, who wrote 'Let the Rest of the World Go By.'”

“We've all got setbacks.”

“When a person attacks, it's rough.”

“Whenever I sang, I said to myself, 'Maybe tonight.' I would never let down, no matter how few people were listening.”

“You sing fast and hope to get out.”