All Quotes

"I'd seen Elvis seated on first class as I entered the plane, so when he came to the coach section before the plane landed and went up and down the aisle signing autographs to all of us there I said “Hey, would you sign this for my girlfriend Allison, you know, Steve Binder manages me,” and he said, “Yes, Yes, I love Steve, Steve’s great,” It didn't then mean much to me (1972), but it was all pretty cool and he was a very sweet guy. In fact, I wasn't a big Elvis fan at the time, but I am now."

"And nobody can bring it all back like Elvis did. And that is why there are sightings, and visits to his home, and why now there is even a stamp. Finally, Elvis can be licked but he can not ever be beaten"

"i) FUN ... it is waiting for you, Mr. and Mrs. Everyday American, and guess what? It is your birthright,” writes Springsteen of that galvanic Elvis moment. Springsteen’s familiar stage voice, his corny carny barker way with action verbs, leaps from the page in assessing what Elvis promised: “The life-blessing, wall-destroying, heart-changing, mind-opening bliss of a freer, more liberated existence. ii) Somewhere in between the mundane variety acts on a routine Sunday night in the year of our Lord 1956, THE REVOLUTION HAS BEEN TELEVISED iii) There have been a lotta tough guys. There have been pretenders. And there have been contenders. But there is only one king. iv)it was like he came along and whispered some dream in everybody’s ear, and somehow we all dreamed it. ii) When I heard it, it just shot straight through to my brain. And I realized, suddenly, that there was more to life than what I'd been living. I was then in pursuit of something and there'd been a vision laid out before me. You were dealing with the pure thrust, the pure energy of the music itself. I was so very young but it still hit me like a thunderbolt."

"The way that I would entertain my family was via impersonations, and I had this very strange combination of who I would do: Yasser Arafat and Elvis Presley. That's just who I impersonated as a seven-year-old. My family was like, ‘Oh, these are good,’ and they would all laugh. I think it made them think I would be an actor."

"Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds and Cant help falling in love........."

"I asked him if he wanted me to pull up. He said, 'No.' I said, 'Are you sure? I could leave a welt.' He replied, 'That's OK.' So I belted him. That slap you hear in the film was not put in afterward – that was the slap.""

"So you were an artist. Big deal! Elvis was an artist. But that didn't stop him from volunteering for the military in time of service. And that's why he's The King, and you're a schmuck."

"Evis called and said that he liked to screen "Rocky", and that he was going to rent a theater in Memphis so that we could watch the film together. And I didn't go. I was shy, believe it or not. And I remember, when he died in 1977, I was doing "F.I.S.T". So now I try to instill in my children: Grab something when it's offered."

"Elvis Presley was my rock ’n’ roll favorite, bigger than life to me. No one had seen somebody that looked like that or moved like that, not in staid, suburban, white society"

"If Elvis were playing through a stack of amplifiers, he would be called a heavy metal singer today. The problem is some of the kids who grew up loving everything he stood for, are now journalists who have become what they feared most, parents. No one name says more than his, ELVIS. It roars while others whisper."

"It's because you reminded me so much of Robert. He was gorgeous, and so are you..."

"I credit my sister Cleedy and my father for the Staple Singers, because Pops would have her singing in a minor. Her soprano was different from anybody else's. And Pops had on his guitar a tremolo. He went to the music store one day, and he came back with this tremolo. I was too young to know who he was, but Elvis Presley told me one time, “I like the way your father plays guitar. He plays a nervous guitar.” I said, “Nervous?! That’s the first time I heard that.” But that was a good name for it. Nervous. Our sound was so unique. What helped Elvis was that when he did interviews, he would tell that he got it from blacks'"

"My mom brought me home from the hospital after my birth with the radio off. This, she told me, was so when we got home and she danced me around to Elvis Presley's “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” it was the first musician I would ever hear."

"Return to sender..."

"If I fly in, can you arrange seating arrangements at one of his shows?"

"I didn't know him personally, but I was a fan of his, loved his music, energy and his voice: he had that fast vibrato that was so nice. At that time you weren't allowed to express yourself in those ways, so they showed him from the waist up, not the waist down. I mean, he was a little sexy guy! I was a little kid, but I asked 'Why won't they show all of him?' He would wiggle all the way down, and the girls would be screaming, and when I saw him on TV, I would be screaming too! And I loved the way his hair would shake when he got so emotional, you know? So when I got the chance to do his music, I welcomed it. (The racist controversy) never troubled me, because he wrote me a note. it was at the time I was divorcing Clarence Carter, and my stuff ended up all over the place, so I don't know what happened to the note, Back then I didn't think anything of it – I thought he would live forever but he told me he really, really, really loved my version of 'In The Ghetto". I have no idea where it is after all this time. Back then I didn't think anything of it – I thought he would live forever.”"

"I think the chances of that are roughly the same of Elvis Presley walking in here right now."

"Elvis was my first massive record obsession. I didn’t quite move like him, but I use to dress up as him sometimes as a kid"

"Finally, he wove into ‘Hound Dog’ and bounced off the stage, carrying the mike with him. There, on the 50-yard-line, he sank to his knees, rose, wove, bumped, ground and sank again, time after time. The girls screamed themselves silly. If that may have been obscene, but it was in the same way the climax of a revival meeting is obscene. Elvis worked himself over to the grass alongside the stage, sank almost out of sight and suddenly slipped into the waiting Cadillac. A motorcycle cop roared out in front, the car drove off and quickly the bowl's overhead lights were turned on. The shrieks became groans of disappointment. But the ball was over, the spell was broken. Noisily, the fans began filing out of the stadium, spent."

"My father, Herbert Stein was at the time Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and worked at the White House, often took me for lunch there where top dogs were allowed to have delicious meals, served by Navy Mess NCOs. We saw many famous people there, but one day, roughly three years before I myself started working there, he leaned towards me confidentially and said, “If you saw Elvis Presley in person, would you recognize him?” “I think so,” said I. “Well, look behind you.” I swiveled my hairy head around, and to my total shock, there was Elvis Presley eating with President Richard Nixon's Chief of Staff, Bob Haldeman a much feared but extremely pleasant and smart man. I got up, made my excuses to Mr. Haldeman, and said to Elvis, “Sir, everyone in the world is your fan, but I am your biggest fan.” In a voice and with a phrase that is incredibly famous, he simply said, “Thank yew ver’ much.” I was dazed. But I did not forget. And if you were to ask me to cite a lesson from it, it would be a line from a great Joan Didion novel called "Play It As It Lays: “You can’t win if you’re not at the table.” “Connections are golden.” Well worth remembering."

"Actually, he was an easy-going guy. No putting on airs, like he was some big star. An ordinary person, very polite, very obliging, a wonderful man, when I look back on it. It's a shame he had to go so soon.”"

"Elvis is like a bull in the ring. He belongs to the crowd—and they refuse to let him go."

"An oldies station was on the radio and it was playing that old Elvis song, 'I Want You, I Need you, I love you" so I just started singing my own song but it was 'I Want You, I Need You, I Love You.' I remember going home and I tried so hard but the best I could do was: 'I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you, don't be sad, 'cause two out of three ain't bad' So it was still a twist but it was my closest to a simple song, and one Elvis could have done."

"Elvis is everywhere. Elvis is everything. Elvis is everybody. Elvis is still the King."

"Certainly the most famous performer to be attached to a tongues-speaking fellowship was Elvis Presley; shortly after the Presleys arrived in Memphis, from Tupelo, a First Assembly of God bus swung through their rundown neighborhood, so they climbed aboard and became regulars of Pastor James Hamill's congregation; Hamill remembers Elvis attended Sunday school and was exposed there to the best in Pentecostal music; in 1957, after he achieved international acclaim, Presley said 'We used to go to these religious sing-ins all the time, and there were these perfectly fine singers nobody responded to, but there were also these other singers who cut up all over the place, jumping on the piano, moving every which way, and all of which the audience liked, so I guess I learned from them'; uninhibited Pentecostalism gave young Elvis ideas about music and performance and, from then on, he was sometimes called the "Evangelist" by his inner circle of friends."

"When Elvis Presley rolled up his sleeve in October 1956 and was photographed receiving the new polio vaccine hours before his appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, he became a massive force for the wonders of public health. Before Elvis got his shot, the number of teenagers to get the vaccine was 0.6%. After the show, the rates went up to 80%."

"The Warriors had cut the lead to as little as two points in the third quarter, the inevitable onslaught stemming from a groin injury that took LeBron James out of the game for good. But then it was Stephenson of all people, former LeBron archival known for blowing in his ear as much as for his questionable shot selection, hitting a momentum-regaining 3-pointer as the third quarter buzzer sounded. True to form, he followed up the huge shot with his trademark guitar-playing celebration -- though this one had some extra hip gyration that would have made Elvis Presley stand up and applaud."

"I'll never forget it. We were in the rehearsal hall, and all of a sudden, we heard this commotion coming down the hall and there was this entourage of people coming into the room, When Elvis walked into the room, my mouth dropped. I'm like, Wow, I now understand why this guy is the biggest star in the world. He had magnetism. He filled the room. He really did. And to be able to sing with him for about a year and a-half of my life was an amazing experience. He was just a great singer. When you listen to Elvis' records, back in the day when he recorded, everything was recorded analog. There were really no computers to tune your voice or anything. He just had a natural talent. And he recorded in a recording studio just like he sang on stage. He held a microphone in his hand. He walked around the recording studio, and it was like he was doing a live performance. And he hardly ever shaded a pitch. He was just so talented, he really was.”"

"Elvis Presley, Hugh Hefner, Frank Sinatra – maybe not the kind of men you'd expect to embrace environmentally-friendly technology even if they were around to see it. However they were all diehard Cadillac guys, and we have to think that if anyone can convince its set-in-their-ways customers to go electric, it's Detroit's most famous luxury brand."

"Back in 2002, Eminem rapped about “little hellions, kids feeling rebellious — embarrassed their parents still listen to Elvis.” Plenty of those little hellions rebelled against their parents (and the carefree ignorance of the pre-9/11 world) and grew up into today's hipsters."

"Elvis was big for me, even from a very young age; That was the music that was around my house; I love that stuff, great songs and, as a singer, he was 'The Great' rock and roll singer."

"One word to describe him̜? Sexy"

"Alas, this turned out to be his only time on UK soil..."

"I believe we need to restore confidence in Illinois. We deserve a state government that you can trust. It has been my mission as your state representative to support, sponsor, and vote for common sense solutions that provide for balanced budgets, to resist tax increases without a commitment to responsible spending, and to secure jobs for working families. I believe doing so will help you have more faith in our state government. I agree with Elvis Presley. “Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”"

"As soon as we were done with the first shot, he said, ‘You wanna talk?’ I was shocked. He pulled up two chairs together, we sat down, he took my hand and then he began to tell me about his mother. He talked about how much he missed her, how when he was in the Army, they wouldn't let him go see her when she was dying. It wasn't like he was flirting, he was just being very sweet and could not have been nicer."

"i) I mean, they treat me like I'm Elvis there, they really do. ii) Elvis was the king. No doubt about it. People like myself, Mick Jagger and all the others only followed in his footsteps. iii)Bloody Elvis, beating me to the top from the grave.iv) He had it all, But I am not doing too bad myself LOL"

"The third day started with a biscuit breakfast on the bus as we headed set course toward Tupelo to visit Elvis Presley's birthplace. I had given our group a loose itinerary, but what the group didn't know is that I had arranged for an Elvis tribute artist to stand on the side of the road five miles out of Oxford with his thumb out, hitchhiking. We picked him up, Jack Curtis was his name, and he performed a concert of Elvis' classics, up and down the aisle of the bus, all of the way in to Tupelo. We got out to tour the Elvis Presley birthplace and my guests said, “I don’t know how you’re going to top this.”...."

"More than 30 years ago, the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) Fraternity joined the fight against childhood cancer when Danny Thomas, founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and fraternity member from the Gamma-Nu chapter at the University of Toledo, asked his fraternity to help him with his cause. Before Thomas could make his dream of building St. Jude a reality, he garnered the help of, inter-alia, Rock 'n' roll legend and fellow Tau Kappa Epsilon member Elvis Presley, who instantly became one of Danny's supporters by lending his talents to help raise funds for cancer-stricken children."

"The most important entertainer in the 20th Century, certainly, and the only people that could even challenge him were the Beatles, but they weren̪'t single performers, so it̪s Elvis Presley."

"We played Anaheim, CA in 1973. I was told to fix a problem with an unauthorized limo trying to get in the back entrance, so I tapped on the chauffeur's window but he said I should talk to the lady in the back. I knock, and there she was, . I was 22 but I had to tell her to walk through the entrance. Same thing in 1974, this time in Philadelphia, PA, but for once the unauthorized limo was carrying someone Elvis already knew, so he got to stay. It was ."

"I was always a fan of Elvis as I was growing up. When I saw him in Vegas, with Phil Spector and his wife, in 1971, he was just awesome, had tremendous energy, charisma, such a handsome man, and a great voice, so actually there was nothing not to like about him. And then, after meeting him backstage, you realize that you are in the presence of someone so gifted, and that it's humbling, really."

"Elvis Presley is a means of seduction, a tool of US imperialism, to make the Communist youth lose its values in the midst of a possible atomic war."

"It as a real hoot to meet him. After he toured the plane he introduced himself, like 'Well, Ron, I guess you know who I am.' I said 'Yes sir, Mr. Presley.' And then he said 'Oh no, it's not sir or mister. Just call me Elvis."

"I never understood his records at first, and then many years later, I thought, "God this guy is good". He had that wonderful sexuality about him, and energy, he was a star, you know, he was bigger than life. Anyways, because I'd met him a couple of times, singing with him was kind of easy, it felt like our spirits were kind of touching..."

"For international visitors, Amtrak is a very common and comfortable means of transportation. To eliminate that, because we're such a strong destination, namely with Elvis Presley home Graceland, Beale Street and Memphis music history being such big draws for international tourists, would be a big, big loss, as lots of people have taken Amtrak train and it has given even more people the opportunity to visit and fall in love with our city."

"Multiple scholars have probed the Elvis cult's Celtic, Gnostic, Hindi, and vodun derivations; have contemplated Graceland's status as "sacred space"; and considered how and why some insist that Elvis, like Jesus, defeated death. Less charitable writers cynically attribute the entire phenomenon to the highly successful mass-marketing techniques of his estate and to the susceptibility of an apparently passive public bent on real-world escapism through, especially, the "transformative" ideology of consumerism."

"I was with Elvis for a few months. He was so physically beautiful, I thought I couldn't breathe. So one night he said, do you want me to sing something to you? So he played his "Spanish Eyes" song and sang it to me, seven times, back to back, as I requested he did. He was kind to his friends, to his family, to strangers, talented, thoughtful, funny. This girl came to a party in his house and I noticed she had two prosthetic legs. So I asked who she was and he said it was someone he didn't know really, but invited to his parties every fortnight so that she could feel wanted, loved....."

"The immediate feeling you have is of the entirety of his life. You feel a young man full of potential. On seeing this 13 acres, you realize that he was at a point in his life that because of creativity, he was able to buy it. You feel all the happy times and all the people that have come and gone, dignitaries and musicians. I just wished that the walls could have talked. But in actual fact, the real treat was the private tour of the mansion, which the good folks of Graceland gave to the General Hospital crew. One of the special features is Elvis' white piano and I wish I could have played it, but we weren't allowed on that side of the velvet ropes. It's a big, white Steinway with actual ivory keys. It certainly has a history and you could just imagine Elvis himself playing there."

"The general idea is that Mississippi claims to be the birthplace of America's music and can pretty well back it up. The spiritual home of rock in roll in our state to me is Elvis Presley's birthplace in Tupelo. The B.B. King Museum and Interpretive Center over in Indianola, up in the Delta, that's where the blues live. The Grammys put in a museum at Delta State University, so that's the north part of the state. And the central part, kind of in the land of Jimmie Rodgers, is going to be Marty Stuart's Congress of Country Music Hall. That's where my collection, that's where the spiritual home of country music will live, as far as I'm concerned."

"The Melbourne General Cemetery has been operational since 1852 and houses prestigious monuments to Malcolm Fraser, Sir Robert Menzies and Burke and Wills. For 100 years, the 36-tonne Burke and Wills monument was the most visited spot in the cemetery – until 1970 when the Elvis Presley memorial was erected. It is located in such a prominent area of the cemetery that you would have to deliberately avoid it to miss it. During peak hour, as cyclists whiz by on the path, an elderly couple passes it while walking their fluffy dogs. It's a deeply unusual monument to find in the historic grounds, particularly when considering that Elvis never even visited Australia. But then, the 1970s were a strange time for the cemetery. For a while, it was the world's first memorial erected after his death and the only official monument outside the US. In fact, it came about in a whir of circumstances, including a mystery donor"