Jazz Singers

"I'm a businessman. I work for business people. The kind of thing they say is: Now we've sold a lot of records, let's sell some more."

"Oh please...As a standup, I tried to change the world. As an entertainer, I try to entertain. And as a lesbian, I try to pick up the prettiest girl in the room. Not necessarily in that order."

"I mean, what the fuck is it with you guys? I thought this was supposed to be a lesbian party. Lesbian? Perhaps you'd like me to tear it off so you qualify." Guido protests. "I have a right to be here, this is the United States, you know, you can't discriminate." "I can't discriminate? Oh, that's ripe, coming from a straight white man. What's the matter, baby doesn't feel like he belongs? Well, why don't you try a place that was set up just for you? Like the world!"

"You know the people I'm talking about, you see them at every pride rally, they get up on stage and go, "We're just like everyone else! We are like them and they are like us. Straights are like us and we are like them! We - are like - EV - eryone - else!" And then a seven-and-a-half-foot-tall drag queen walks by with three feet spangled platforms and he opens up his butterfly wings, f-f-f-f-f-f-f! Oh, we're just like everyone else, all right! We have our own culture and our own way of doing things and we should celebrate that and stop licking straight ass!"

"[An anti-abortion conference goer] says, "Well, don't you believe that life begins at inception?" I say, "No. I believe that life begins when you mind your own fucking business!""

"I'm at West Virginia University to do a show, right, and they've done all this fucking publicity about it...so when I get to my show, who's waiting for me but five hundred Christian protestors with great big signs. "Lea DeLaria is going to hell." Not generic "gay is not good:" "Lea DeLaria is going to hell." Which is what I need five hundred strangers to tell me, like twelve years of Catholic fuckin' school wasn't enough, right?!"

"They are preserving the sanctity of marriage, so that two gay men who've been together for twenty-five years can't get married, but a guy can still get drunk in Vegas and marry a hooker at the Elvis chapel! The sanctity of marriage is saved!"

"What do you mean, you "don't believe in homosexuality?" It's not like the Easter Bunny, your belief isn't necessary."

"Did you read [Holly Near's book]? Let me save you the trouble. This is the most exciting sentence in the book: ..."I feel like a lesbian when I'm making love to a woman." Gooooooooood, Holly! Well, the major difference between me and Holly Near is that I feel like a lesbian when I am BREATHING!"

"He looked me right in the face and said, "You fucking bulldyke!" And I thought to myself, "Oooh, what a smart man! Why, I'll bet he took one look at me and knew I was white, too!""

"Learn all the rules... then break them."

"Never point at anything beige and call it cool."

"My idea as far as comedy goes has always been to push the limits of what's acceptable for a woman to do or say or be. My hero in that would be Lenny Bruce, who teaches us that words have no meaning. It's the intent behind them that is what's important."

"I realize my strengths. The truth is, I sing ballads. People like it when I sing ballads. I seem to have a way with them. And if the cool kids can’t say anything nice about me, that’s how it is."

"I got a Jones like Norah for your soror."

"Every year we went, I would be up for "Album of the Year" and then the winner is Norah Jones? Who? And I'm not even trying to say anything bad about her music. At that point, I had never heard of her and none of my friends did either and then Steely Dan. Okay, I know who Steely Dan is. Steely Dan back in the day. More than The Marshall Mathers LP impact? Okay, fine. I watched 50. 50 did not win Best New Artist at the Grammys. Nobody since Snoop came out the gate like that. My first album didn't do it. I never saw someone's first album and the wave happen like he had. And then he doesn't get it."

"What the fuck is going on? Who the fuck is Norah Jones? "Shady, wait a minute, baby, leave the whore alone. Just go up there and be humble and take them awards home.""

"I love the things that you've given meI cherish you my dear countryBut sometimes I don't understand the way we play"

"I can't hold on very long Forgive me, pretty baby, but I always take the long way home"

"It never rains when you want it to You humble me, Lord"

"I want to wake up with the rain Falling on a tin roof While I'm safe there in your arms So all I ask is for you To come away with me in the night Come away with me"

"I want to walk with you On a cloudy day In fields where the yellow grass grows knee high"

"If I were a painter I would paint my reverie If that's the only way for you to be with me"

"How far you are I just don't know The distance I'm willing to go I pick up a stone that I cast to the sky Hoping for some kind of sign"

"Lonestar Where are you out tonight? This feeling I'm trying to fight It's dark and I think that I would give anything For you to shine down on me"

"Something has to make you run I don't know why I didn't come"

"I’m like, "Oh, I make slow music." I guess that’s okay. Maybe it's a good thing to sound like yourself."

"I’m too sensitive. All I have to do is pick up Newsweek and glance upon a bad review and it will crush me for a week. Some Joe Schmo writes a snarky comment in a blog and I’m destroyed."

"They call me "Snorah", but Jesus, that slow music touches people!"

"When I was going blind, I didn't turn to God. It didn't seem to me then — and it doesn't seem to me now — that those items were His concern. Early on, I figured I better begin to learn how to count on myself, instead of counting on supernatural forces."

"His melding of styles influenced artists from a wide range of genres, and his own records are classics, running the gamut from country to gospel to R&B."

"It's a little like a Ray Charles concert, isn't it? Georgia!"

"Ray Charles is the only genius in our business."

"A lot of Negro style-the style of a man like Miles Davis or Ray Charles or the style of a man like myself is based on a knowledge of what people are really saying and on our refusal to hear it. You pick up on the beat, which is much more truthful than words."

"There are certain artists who belong to all the people, everywhere, all the time. The list of singers, musicians, and poets must include David the harpist from the Old Testament, Aesop the Storyteller, Omar Khayyam the Tent Maker, Shakespeare the Bard of Avon, Louis Armstrong the genius of New Orleans, Om Kalsoum the soul of Egypt, Frank Sinatra, Mahalia Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles....Celia Cruz...All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us all that we are more alike than we are unalike."

"Other arms reach out to me Other eyes smile tenderly Still in peaceful dreams I see The road leads back to you. Georgia, oh Georgia, no peace I find... Just an old sweet song Keeps Georgia on my mind."

"Music is nothing separate from me. It is me. I can't retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. You'd have to remove the music from me surgically — like you were taking out my appendix."

"Women anchor me. They're there when I need them. They're sensitive to me, and I'm sensitive to them. I'm not saying I've loved that many women. Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap. But sex is something else. I'm not sure that there can ever be too much sex. To me, it's another one of our daily requirements — like eating. If I go twenty-four hours without it, I get hungry. Sex needs to be open and fun, free and happy. It's whatever you make it, and I try my hardest to create situations where me and my woman can enjoy ourselves — all of ourselves — without our inhibitions getting in the way. You got to set your mind right and the rest will come to you naturally. No restrictions, no hang-ups, no stupid rules, no formalities, no forbidden fruit — just everyone getting and giving as much as he and she can."

"My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil."

"Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together. You got some sugar and I don't; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour; well, I'll give you some of mine. That's how my band made it. We swam through a lot of shit together, we swallowed a lot of pride, but we managed to do what we needed to do."

"Then there were motorcycles. I learned to ride one in Tallahassee when I was about 14 or 15. … I got to know the town pretty well, and soon I felt confident about riding round. Tallahassee was full of hills, and I loved racing up and down 'em, sometimes trailing my friend or riding next to him, so I could hear the sound of the exhaust and make sure to follow closely and yet not too closely. I know it sounds strange — a blind teenager buzzin' round on a motorcycle — but I liked that; that was me. I had always been nervy, and I always had a lot of faith in my ability not to break my neck."

"You gotta know how to get to people's heart"

"I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human."

"I was born with music inside me. That's the only explanation I know of, since none of my relatives could sing or play an instrument. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me — like food or water."

"Before I begin, let me say right here and now that I'm a country boy. And, man, I mean the real backwoods! That's at the start of the start of the thing, and that's at the heart of the thing."

"Every music has its own soul, Quincy"

"You better live every day like your last because one day you're going to be right."

"Do it right or don't do it at all. That comes from my mom. If there's something I want to do, I'm one of those people that won't be satisfied until I get it done. If I'm trying to sing something and I can't get it, I'm going to keep at it until I get where I want it."

"I started to sing like myself — as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while — when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it."

"The fact of the matter is, you don't give up what's natural. Anything I've fantasized about, I've done."