Rock 'n' roll accepted me and paid me, even though I loved the big bands... I went that way because I wanted a home of my own. I had a family. I had to raise them. Let's don't leave out the economics. No way.

My music is simple stuff. Anybody can sit down, look at a set of symbols and produce sounds the music represents.

Science and religion are both the same thing. They're there; they're life. If it's not science, it's not a fact.

If the people in the audience are talking, you're being ignored. If the people are gazing at you, you've got something they want to hear.

You don't just go to the studio and say, 'I'm going to write a hit.' It becomes a hit when people like your compositions.

My dad was the cause of me being in show business. He was not only in poetry but in acting a bit. He was Mordecai in the play 'A Dream of Queen Esther.'

The music played most around St. Louis was country-western and swing. Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of the country stuff on our predominantly black audience. After they laughed at me a few times, they began requesting the hillbilly stuff.

It amazes me when I hear people say, 'I want to go out and find out who I am.' I always knew who I was. I was going to be famous if it killed me.

That's the misconceptions that people have, that Chuck Berry went to jail. They're just totally wrong. It might have said something in the large papers in the bigger city headlines and things. But, you take a look at any of the local papers, and you will see that I was acquitted. I never went to jail.

My singing days have passed. My voice is gone. My throat is worn. And my lungs are going fast.

I've written songs on everything. Menus. Napkins. Little pieces of paper.

I eat meat daily. I'm not Jewish. I'm not Arabic. What's the kind of person that doesn't eat meat? That's right - I'm not a vegetarian.

If I wasn't a musician, I'd take up the law. They are the rottenest, wealthiest people in America.

There had to be a market in order for you to be successful in a business. The market had to need your business, or the product of it.

If you're going to be mad, at least let the people know what you're mad about.

I used to work at Kroger's. When the store opened, you were there. When I worked in an automobile plant, you punched in. So it showed if you were a minute late. If you have a paid job, you show up.

I have lots of ambition!

I wanted to be a comedian. And I did that so much in high school, I couldn't get a girlfriend.

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.

I was in 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' with Jack Nicholson. That was fun. I think I made, like, $33 or something. I got to miss a whole day of school, and when you're a little kid, that's cool.

I basically follow a modified Zone Diet. I have my food prepared weekly and eat 6 times a day.

I eat a balanced diet.

I'd like to have all of my losses back. But it's too late for that.

Everyone says I drive like my grandfather, but that's not always a good thing because he didn't always watch the road because he'd talk to you and look at you. He was a deputy sheriff, a cop, for a long time. So he was always looking around, checking out other things, other than what's directly in front of him.

I've never been intimidated by anyone.

I hate hearing in a UFC corner, 'You won the first four rounds; just stay away from him this round.'

I don't change my style for anybody.