Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I tried to look presentable for a show, but not for sexual attraction. It was strictly for show business.
I thank God for Elvis Presley. I thank the Lord for sending Elvis to open the door so I could walk down the road.
My mother died, and I couldn't stand to look at her bedroom any more. I'd get sick. I've always been a momma's boy.
It was a way out of poverty. It was a way to success. It was a way to education. And it was a way to a brighter day for me.
I was washing dishes at the Greyhound bus station at the time and I said, 'Awap bop a lup bop a wop bam boom, take 'em out!'
Elvis was God-given, there's no other explanation. A Messiah comes around every few thousand years, and Elvis was it this time.
I try to be a guide for people, to make their darkness bright and to make the pathway light, and never to condemn or control or criticize.
I came from a family where my people didn't like rhythm and blues. Bing Crosby - "Pennies from Heaven" - Ella Fitzgerald, was all I heard.
But when I went on the stage to do a show, I would put on makeup because I felt that it enhanced my act; it drew attention to what I was doing.
God would be a very selfish god if he gave all the soul to one race. ... When one sings from the heart and it reaches another heart, that's soul.
If at first you don't succeed, you get back up and you try ... and you try ... and you try it again ... except ice skating, I hate this crap, I quit!
And I'd like to give my love to everybody, and let them know that the grass may look greener on the other side, but believe me, it's just as hard to cut.
Rock 'n' roll offered me a platform to speak what I felt. It also offered me a platform to support my mama and my brothers and sisters - twelve children.
I think people who don't believe in God are crazy. How can you say there is no God when you hear the birds singing these beautiful songs you didn't make?
I look back on my life, comin' out of Macon, Georgia - I never thought I'd be a superstar, a living legend. I never heard of no rock and roll in my life.
Gay people are the sweetest, kindest, most artistic, warmest and most thoughtful people in the world. And since the beginning of time all they've ever been is kicked.
They shoulda called me Little Cocaine, I was sniffing so much of the stuff! My nose got big enough to back a diesel truck in, unload it, and drive it right out again.
I decided to come back and teach goodness in this business. To teach love, because music is the universal language. We are God's bouquet, and through music we become one.
I think God made a woman to be strong and not to be trampled under the feet of men. I've always felt this way because my mother was a very strong woman, without a husband.
Black people lived right by the railroad tracks and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy and I thought: I'm gonna make a song that sounds like that.
I think they saw me as something like a deliverer, a way out. My means of expression, my music, was a way in which a lot of people wished they could express themselves and couldn't.
Black people lived right by the railroad tracks, and the train would shake their houses at night. I would hear it as a boy, and I thought: I'm gonna make a song that sounds like that.
I think my legacy should be that when I started in show business, there wasn't no such thing as rock n' roll. When I started with 'Tutti Frutti,' that's when rock really started rocking.
I was directed and commanded by another power. The power of darkness. The power that you've heard so much about. The power that a lot of people don't believe exists. The power of the Devil. Satan.
When you sit down and think about what rock 'n' roll music really is, then you have to change that question. Played up-tempo, you call it rock 'n' roll; at a regular tempo, you call it rhythm and blues.
Rock 'n' roll doesn't glorify God. You can't drink out of God's cup and the devil's cup at the same time. I was one of the pioneers of that music, one of the builders. I know what the blocks are made of because I built them.
People called rock & roll 'African music.' They called it 'voodoo music.' They said that it would drive the kids insane. They said that it was just a flash in the pan - the same thing that they always used to say about hip-hop.
I've never gotten money from most of those records. And I made those records: In the studio, they'd just give me a bunch of words, I'd make up a song! The rhythm and everything. 'Good Golly Miss Molly'! And I didn't get a dime for it.
My true belief about Rock 'n' Roll--and there have been a lot of phrases attributed to me over the years--is this: I believe this kind of music is demonic. ... A lot of the beats in music today are taken from voodoo, from the voodoo drums. If you study music in rhythms, like I have, you'll see that is true. I believe that kind of music is driving people from Christ. It is contagious