"So you play your albums and you smoke your pot And you meet your girlfriend in the parking lot Oh, but still you're aching for the things you haven't got, What went wrong? And if you can't understand why your world is so dead And why you've got to keep in style and feed your head Well, you're twenty one and still you mother makes your bed And that's too long."

"From a town known as Wheeling, West Virginia Rode a boy with a six-gun in his hand And his daring life of crime made him a legend in his time East and west of the Rio Grande. Well, he started with a bank in Colorado In the pocket of his vest a Colt he hid. And his age and his size took the teller by surprise, And the word spread of Billy the Kid."

"If I traveled all my life And I never get to stop and settle down Long as I have you by my side There's a roof above and good walls all around You're my castle, you're my cabin and my instant pleasure dome I need you in my house 'cause you're my home."

"And the waitress is practicing politics As the businessmen slowly get stoned Yes they're sharing a drink they call loneliness But it's better than drinking alone."

"Sing us a song you're the piano man Sing us a song tonight. Well we're all in the mood for a melody And you've got us feeling alright."

"It's nine o' clock on a Saturday Regular crowd shuffles in There's an old man sitting next to me Making love to his tonic and gin."

"You can walk away from your mistakes You can turn your back on what you do Just a little smile is all it takes And you can have your cake and eat it too. Loneliness will get to you somehow But ev'rybody loves you now."

"She comes to me when I'm feelin' down Inspires me without a sound She touches me and I get turned around."

"She's got a way about her I don't know what it is. But I know that I can't live without her. She's got a way of pleasin' I don't know what it is But there doesn't have to be a reason anyway."

"Don't take any shit from anybody!"

"Apropos of nothing, I asked [Truman] Capote, “Are you for integration?” He said, “Yes, are you for integration?” I said, “I’m for disintegration… personal disintegration.”"

"About his neuroses and hypochondria, the 1920s and 1930s wit Alexander Woollcott, a member of the Algonquin Round Table, once said of him: "There isn't anything the matter with Levant that a few miracles wouldn't cure.""

"It is not always possible to predict the response of a doting Jewish mother. Witness the occasion on which the late piano virtuoso Oscar Levant telephoned his mother with some important news. He had proposed to his beloved and been accepted. Replied Mother Levant: “Good, Oscar, I’m happy to hear it. But did you practice today?”"

"I can see him to this day. He was witty and funny, always playing himself in the movies. He smoked so many cigarettes, there was a nicotine streak on his upper lip and on his fingers between the index finger and the second one. He was a wonderful guy—but he played the piano like a sledgehammer."

"I was on Information Please with him and afterward there was a party and idly Oscar sat down at the piano and began to play. I remember how the conversation hushed in the crowded room. The waiters stopped serving and stood, silently listening. Yet, on this TV show, he seems almost a buffoon, as if he is deliberately mocking himself, drawing a caricature of the old Levant."

"I was fond of Oscar, but there was something about our twin natures which made us exchange insults. I told him that I wanted to make a date with him every day so that I would know where he was and could avoid the place."

"Oscar would have been here at the head table—but he was feeling well."

"The book should be a happy introduction to a character who, if he did not exist, could not be imagined."

"[Ira Gershwin] said that [P.G.] Wodehouse will address a letter, stamp it and throw it out of his third-story window onto the street trusting in the good nature of passerby to pick it up and mail it."

"When I was in my prime, I was an egomaniac and didn’t allow my wife to buy the best sardines–the King Oscars–which bear my name. I felt there should be only one king in my house."

"In the middle and late 50′s I was in hospitals constantly. I was committed every time I drew a breath or took an extra twelve pills–which never affected me much because I’m not suicidal."

"I have seizures of momentary sanity."

"Instant unconsciousness had been my greatest passion for ten years."

"A psychiatrist once diagnosed my troubles as “an abdication of will.”"

"As a rule I never read bad reviews about myself because my best friends invariably tell me about them."

"I rated the drug Demerol over sex as the ultimate pleasure at one time. Now I don’t have access to either."

"I heartily approve of her campaign to beautify America. It would be greatly improved if the First Family were kept out of sight."

"An epigram is only a wisecrack that's played at Carnegie Hall."

"I once said cynically of a politician, "He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.""

"My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day's first picture; that was before she became a virgin."

"Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you will find the real tinsel underneath."

"There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."

"I'm a study of a man in chaos in search of frenzy."

"I don't drink liquor. I don't like it. It makes me feel good."

"The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue."

"It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character."

"This piano plays. Which is more than I can say for her."

"Incompatibility. And besides, I think she hated me."

"He never asks the orchestra to do anything which contradicts the players' feeling of what the music signifies or what the printed notes of the score actually mean in plain musical language. To his credit he does not pretend to omniscience. When a certain progression of programs with the Philharmonic decreed that he conduct the Brahms Fourth Symphony two seasons ago, he disavowed intensive rehearsals with the simple statement to the orchestra: "Gentlemen, you know the work better than I do." Both the compliment and the attitude endeared themselves so much to the orchestra that they literally forgot themselves in a mass effort to justify his statement—and, as one of those who heard the performance, I can testify that they delivered one of the most powerful and integrated interpretations of the score that New York has experienced in years."

"I would like to have been present, if I could have my choice of all moments in music history, when Stokowski suddenly became conscious of his beautiful hands. That must have been a moment. Like stout Cortez [sic] on a peak in Darien (I know it was Balboa) he saw before him a limitless expanse, a whole uncharted sea that might be subjected to his influence, free from the encumbrance of a baton."

"A symphonic conductor should reconcile himself to the realization that, regardless of his approach or temperament, the eventual result is the same — the orchestra will hate him."

"It would have been better if you had died and Gershwin had written the elegy."

"Tell me, George, if you had it to do all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?"

"It certainly will be if you are still around."

"When I used to speak of the lunatic fringe, I didn’t know I was going to be head of it."

"The other night my daughter Lorna reminisced about the time I regressed to complete infantilism. We were having dinner and tapioca pudding was served. A wild glint came into my eyes and in the presence of my wife and children I shrieked at the top of my voice, “I love this more than anything in the world!” I had to be withdrawn from tapioca pudding slowly. It was one of the few times I wasn’t committed to achieve withdrawal."

"Now that Marilyn Monroe is kosher, Arthur Miller can eat her."

"Once he makes up his mind, he's full of indecision."

"I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing the other patients."

"I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself."