Tony Bennett

“Mercer was very clever. He knew the way Southerners spoke and put that into his lyrics. But in that whole era, you had the best. Harold Arlen was just fantastic. Cole Porter was better than anybody, and Gershwin was Gershwin, y'know. Johnny Mercer started Capitol Records, and he brought in Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole.”

“I'll never retire.”

“I love entertaining people; I strive to make them feel good, and they make me feel wonderful. To explain it simply, I like what I do, and my ambition is to get better as I get older. That's really what I'm all about.”

“I still feel that I can get better somehow. And I search for it all of the time.”

“Singing intimately is almost like thinking into a microphone, so it helps to have the song buried inside you.”