Chuck Berry

“I would sing the blues if I had the blues.”

“I just feel I got my inspiration, education and all from others that came before me. And I added my... I don't even know if I added anything. I played what they played, and it sounded different, I guess.”

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

“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.”

“Respect isn't enough. You've got to have a proprietary interest.”

“The media dresses things up. There's a lot of inaccuracy.”

“I should have been a son of Einstein.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“The Man Upstairs is taking care of me.”

“If you want to release your aggression, get up and dance. That's what rock and roll is all about.”

“In a way, I feel it might be ill-mannered to try and top myself. The music I play is a ritual. Something that matters to people in a special way. I wouldn't want to interfere with that.”

“I'm thankful for performing as long as I am allowed.”

“A song is a song. But there are some songs, ah, some songs are the greatest. The Beatles song 'Yesterday.' Listen to the lyrics.”

“Elvis' songs will always be there, and I hope mine will be after I'm gone.”

“Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening.”

“I love poetry. I love rhyming. Do you know, there are poets who don't rhyme? Shakespeare did not rhyme most of the time, and that's why I do not like him.”

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

“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.”