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" When I was a kid, I had to try a lot of pyrotechnics just so people would know who I was. "

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" Mancini was a big part of my life. I sang a lot of his music, and he became a good buddy. "

" At this stage, most of the awards I get are concerned with my longevity. Even I'm amazed at myself because there have been new generations since I've been born and new music that they create, so it's amazing to still be on the radar. "

" I had stage fright for years and years, and I could hear it in my singing. But since I've done it so often for so many years, you'd think that I'd relax a little bit, and I think that I have. "

" Sometimes being famous gets in the way of doing what you want to do. "

" Each person's voice is very different, so you need to find what works for you. Make sure you keep to your routine. "

" When you say, 'I'm going to sing it once, and everyone is going to hear it forever,' that's kind of frightening. "

" I was a mediocre basketball player. But I was there, and I could remember the plays. And my basketball coach, after he retired from teaching, would come to my performances all the time. And I was very happy about that, because I was not memorable as a basketball player. "

" It's very much like opera singers. They do the same thing. The first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, the thing they think about is their voice and how to take care of it. "

" When I go out shopping and pass a bookstore, I always grab a couple of cookbooks, so I have a library of them. I end up keeping many that I got years and years ago because they work so well. "

" I cannot tell you how lucky I am: the songs that I sing, I like! "

" I always felt like what I was doing wasn't selling toys; I was making a happy sound at Christmas. When people hear something so familiar, it brings them back to a special place, and that's been meaningful for me. "

" Dad would come home from doing odd jobs, and sometimes he'd come home late at night with lumber, and he'd rumble around with all this wood in our small place. We'd finish putting it away, and then we'd play that piano. I'll be eternally grateful to him. "

" The world changes. The world is completely different now from when I was growing up. Back then, you didn't say things like they say now, out loud, about race and things. But that's just progress. When are we going to find out that we're all the same - we're all absolutely, without a doubt, the same? "

" I have no memories of my childhood in Texas. When I was about four, we moved to San Francisco. I was in the middle of seven brothers and sisters: three girls and four boys. Most of my older brothers and sisters got the blame for everything, and the little ones had a free ride. We loved each other but fought like cats and dogs. "

" Even though there's no forum for me on the radio for the kind of music I sing anymore, I am still excited about having a career where I can sing the best music in the world, and people will come and hear me because of the hit records I've had in the past. "

" I decided right away that whomever was going to advise me had to be fundamentally interested in music. This protected me from the skullduggery common to the music industry then and that still exists today. Of course, using this method meant that some things we didn't know and just had to learn how to do it together. "

" I invite a lot of my friends to some of the performances that I do locally, and some of them know that I'm involved with music, but they're not quite sure how. And so it's kind of fun to play golf with a lot of my friends and then invite them to hear me sing once in a while. "

" The thing that means most to me is the joy that my mom and my dad got because of my career... They raised seven children on domestic wages, in a city like San Francisco, and did nothing but work, work, work. "

" When you do interviews, you have to talk about yourself - and I like to find out about other people. I am so familiar with everything that I do. I've said it over and over again. I think it is boring. "

" I've never been married, and I have no regrets about not starting my own family. I come from a large one, so there are so many people around all the time. I've been very happy, but I've never gotten married. That's about the size of it. I would have been a good father because I've been a father to my brothers' and sisters' children. "

" When I was very young, it was all, 'Here's little Johnny,' and I got stuck with it, but I prefer John. There comes a time in a man's life when he shouldn't have a name ending in 'y'. "

" It's just that some people are lucky and people still seem to enjoy the music. "

" When I got a chance, I went back and shared those experiences that were important to me. George Washington High, the campus at San Francisco State, and even back to Emerson Elementary school and Roosevelt Junior High. I was happy to do it, to go back and see if all the same teachers were there. "

" When I do an album I try to find a producer that's excited about something that they want me to sing, and I check with the record company to find out what they think they can sell - which is their No. 1 priority. "

" I was really active athletically, definitely. I was a hurdler, a sprinter. I played basketball for years. I was a serious athlete. "

" I have to remember that no matter how often I perform, there are certain songs that the audience truly wants to hear, and even though I've sung it 100,000 times, it may be their first time hearing them. "

" I've been very happy to see some of the success that I've had along the way in opening the eyes of people, especially people who listen to music. "

" I would say three-quarters of what I do depends on the sincerity of it. You can croak, but if you croak good, they'll still listen. "

" Christmas is never going to go away, and it's always going to be there. And there's always room for one more Christmas song, I think. "

" There are not so many songs written about love today like there were in the past. It's all changed, but that's why my songs still last as big favorites today. "