One of my realizations is that if you revel over joy, you're going to ache over pain and get killed over hurt. Your span of feelings are going to go just as far one way as the other.

Elvis' songs will always be there, and I hope mine will be after I'm gone.

I don't want the bottom, so I have to sacrifice the top.

Rather than have joy, I would rather be absent of pain.

My father married once. I married once. This is a conviction of ours. This is the way we grew up.

The Rolling Stones... The Rolling Stones have a reflection to my music; I wouldn't deny it. I think that's honest.

Respect isn't enough. You've got to have a proprietary interest.

I didn't connect with the kids. I was in the studio. I never saw the kids. I hoped they liked it, of course. And then I'd go write some more. And then I'd go buy me a home. Very American.

People don't want to see 17 pieces in neckties. They wanna see some jeans, some gettin' down, and some wigglin'.

Maybe it is true what they say, that playing these Chuck Berry songs is easy. But try singing them. The words come out hard, like bullets.

There has been a great laziness in my soul. Lots of days I could write songs, but I could also take my $400 and play the slot machines at the riverfront casino.

Chuck Berry doesn't give interviews.

Remember that my view, the only true view I can see with, is through the black eyes that I have.

People said I was king, but I was never king, and I say I'm the prime minister.

Listening to Nat Cole prompted me to sing sentimental songs with distinct diction.

My 12th was my most Christian and most boring year of my life. Try as I did, day after day, to cling to righteousness, I was washed down in suds of sinful surroundings.

I think my interviews were much better than what some of the writers wrote. I just wanted the truth out.

I'm thankful for performing as long as I am allowed.

I always want to play the songs that people want to hear.

Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening.

What kind of shorts I wear has nothing to do with music.

The first thing I heard was spiritual music, which was imbedded. The second thing I heard was swing. And shortly, along with that, I began to hear the blues. And then I began to hear Latin music. Each one left its mark.

The world has done nothing to me that I haven't done with the world.

I added and deleted according to the audiences' response to different gestures, and chose songs to build an act that would constantly stimulate my audience.