Kishore Kumar

“Very often I would mix up my lines and look angry in a romantic scene or romantic in the midst of a fierce battle.”

“Playback singing is fun and good money. But it's no big art really; only the film and record people glorify it with all those gold and silver discs given to singers.”

“I am an actor who sings off screen for another actor. That is what playback singing is all about.”

“Directors know nothing. I never had the privilege of working with any good director. Except Satyen Bose and Bimal Roy, no one even knew the ABC of filmmaking.”

“I am determined to get out of this futile rat race and live as I've always wanted to. In my native Khandwa, the land of my forefathers.”

“I only wanted to sing. Never to act. But somehow, thanks to peculiar circumstances, I was persuaded to act in the movies. I hated every moment of it and tried virtually every trick to get out of it.”

“Who am I to object to songs? It is my livelihood.”

“I was the biggest draw after Dilip Kumar.”

“Directors were like schoolteachers. Do this. Do that. Don't do this. Don't do that. I dreaded it.”

“People bore me. Film people particularly bore me. I prefer talking to my trees.”