Remember, it's better to be a has-been than a never-was.
Tiny Tim
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.
There are a lot of ups and downs. But there are always people who have it worse.
The only thing I pray for is the strength to go out without complaining.
In this business, you gotta hustle.
At the start of the '50s, I had short hair. And I was getting nowhere.
I keep recording and recording, but they always stay on the rack and never get out there.
I don't think I'm turning back the clock by doing these old tunes. I love rock and roll and popular music. It's just that the spirits of the singers whose songs I do are living within me. That's why the songs come out in the voices of the original singers. I'm not doing imitations. That's the way they sound inside me.
As long as those pretty girls notice me, I don't care if they say, 'Ghastly, horrible'... I live for the beautiful angels.
Boy George was only 7 years old when I was hot in '68.
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.
Death is never polite, even when we expect it.
In order to have a TV series, you have to have a good idea for the story.
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.'
I don't believe in Women's Liberation. No, no, no, no, no. Not at all.
I think they should give me a spot on 'Dallas' or 'Dynasty' or one of those shows.
If the cap ain't on my Crest, if it's squeezed from the middle and not the bottom, there's a problem.
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.
There is nothing like youth.
The devil reigns in me more than in any man I can think of.
I always love the smell of a bat and a glove, or a hockey puck in the winter time.
I always bring my little ukelele along in my shopping bag which my dear, sweet father bought me. After all, you just never know when a song might come along.
Don't bury me with anyone old.
As long as you're recording and they pay the fee, it's like a lottery ticket. You never stop trying.
I saw 'Cynthia' five times.
Night after night in the '50s, I traveled all over New York City. The promoter had 10 acts, and the winner each night would get five dollars; second place would get three dollars, and third place would get two dollars. He always put the best acts on last so the people wouldn't walk out, and the worst acts went on first. He always put me on first.
The biggest blunder in the history of this country was when President Truman pulled General MacArthur out of China.
When I first went on the 'Johnny Carson show', the band did not want me, and Carson did not want me. If the audience had not received 'Tiptoe' so overwhelmingly, I do not believe Carson would have let me come over to be on the panel after the song.
I had this old wind-up phonograph when I was a kid, and I'd listen to records. And the radio.
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 knew that someday I would be discovered.
We've all got setbacks.
As long as my voice is here, and there is a Holiday Inn waiting for me, then everything's just swell.
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.
I want to get a hit record, and I know I can be good in horror movies.
One day in 1952, I woke up with a high voice.
If the club was empty, I sang to the chairs.
I'm the type of person, I cannot waste time.
I don't believe in birth control.
Believe it or not, I'd love to go to the moon.
I always wanted to be a big star.
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'm like a pitcher. I'm either on or off.
I had this image before Boy George, before the Beatles, before the Rolling Stones.
I don't know why, but I felt as if I was always behind the eight ball, so to speak.
I was in Australia in 1983 and did a stunt in a lion's cage.
In this business, you're as good as your last hit record, and mine was more than 26 years ago.
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?'
I'm a very difficult person to live with.
I don't want people to think lm hypocritical.
