2. “We can’t build our dreams on suspicious minds.”

3. “A little less fight and a little more spark, close your mouth and open your heart.”

4. “The image is one thing, and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.”

5. “Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same, but you leave them all over everything you do.”

6. “Animals don’t hate, and we’re supposed to be better than them.”

7. “Some people tap their feet, some people snap their fingers, and some people sway back and forth. I just sort of do them all together, I guess.”

8. “Don’t leave my embrace, for here in my arms is your place.”

9. “If you let your head get too big, it’ll break your neck.”

10. “You’ve got to follow that dream, wherever that dream may lead.”

11. “When things go wrong, don’t go with them.”

12. “So every dream I have ever dreamed has come true a thousand times.”

13. “Life has taught me one big lesson—always keep the girlies guessing.”

14. “My philosophy of life is simple—I need someone to love, something to wait, and do something.”

15. “Now and then, there’s a fool such as I.”

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16. “I never expected to be anybody important.”

17. “To judge a man by his weakest link or deed is like judging the power of the ocean by one wave.”

18. “There’s no job too immense when you got confidence.”

19. “A little less conversation, a little more action.”

20. “Music should be something that makes you got to move, inside or outside.”

21. “It’s more important to try to surround yourself with people who can give you a little happiness.”

22. “Until we meet again, may God bless you as He has blessed me.”

23. “People think you’re crazy if you talk about things they don’t understand.”

24. “Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.”

25. “It’s human nature to gripe, but I’m going ahead and doing the best I can.”

26. “I don’t know anything about music. In my line, you don’t have to.”

27. “Everything is so dreamy when you are young. After you grow up, it kind of becomes just real.”

28. “Do something worth remembering.”

29. “Since the beginning, it was just the same. The only difference, the crowds are bigger now.”

30. “I’ve tried to lead a straight, clean life, not set any kind of a bad example.”

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31. “I am not the King. Jesus Christ is the King. I’m just an entertainer.”

32. “They put me on television, and the whole thing broke loose. It was wild, I tell you for sure.”

33. “Money, honey, if you want to get along with me.”

34. “I’m not trying to be sexy. It’s just my way of expressing myself when I move around.”

35. “I’ve never written a song in my life. It’s all a big hoax.”

36. “All the stars will tell the story of our love and all its glory.”

37. “When your intelligence don’t tell you something ain’t right, your conscience gives you a tap you on the shoulder and says, ‘Hold on.’ If it don’t, you’re a snake.”

38. “I lose myself in my singing.”

39. “I’d rather go on hearing your lies than to go on living without you.”

40. “Rhythm is something you either have or don’t have, but when you have it, you have it all over.”

41. “I would beg and steal just to feel your heart beating close to mine.”

42. “Maybe I didn’t treat you quite as good as I should have. Maybe I didn’t love you quite as often as I could have. Little things I should have said and done. I just never took the time. You were always on my mind.”

43. “I figure all any kid needs is hope and the feeling he or she belongs. If I could do or say anything that would give some kid that feeling, I would believe I had contributed something to the world.”

44. “I forgot to remember to forget.”

45. “I’ll never make it. It will never happen because they’re never going to hear me, ’cause they’re screaming all the time.”

46. “Everybody comes from the same source. If you hate another human being, you’re hating part of yourself.”

47. “Never wait for tomorrow. What if tomorrow never comes?”

48. “Sad thing is, you can still love someone and be wrong for them.”

49. “If you cry when you’re in love, it sure ain’t no disgrace.”

50. “Somebody does something stupid—that’s human. They don’t stop when they see it’s wrong—that’s a fool.”

51. “When I was a child, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dreamer. I read comic books, and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies, and I was the hero in the movie.”

52. “For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels.”

53. “If you wanna be loved, baby, you’ve got to love me too. Oh yeah, ‘cause I ain’t for no one side love affair.”

54. “Computers may out-think us one day, but as long as people got feelings, we’ll be better than they are.”

55. “Do what’s right for you, as long as you don’t hurt no one.”

56. “Take your troubles to the chapel, get down on your knees and pray.”

57. “You have to be careful out in the world.”

58. “I don’t mind being controversial. Even Jesus wasn’t loved in His day.”

59. “Gospel music is the purest thing there is on this earth.”

60. “Friends are people you can talk to without words when you have to.”

61. “Sharing money is what gives it its value.”

62. “How can you lose something you never had? I tell myself when I’m feeling sad.”

63. “We’re trapped in a world that’s troubled with pain.”

64. “As long as a man has the strength to dream, he can redeem his soul and fly.”

65. “I learned very early in life that without a song, the day would never end. Without a friend, a man ain’t got a friend. Without a song, the road would never bend.”

66. “Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine. Ain’t nowhere else in the world where you can go from driving a truck to Cadillac overnight.”

67. “Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man, but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.”

68. “After a hard day of basic training, you could eat a rattlesnake.”

69. “Every time I think that I’m getting old and gradually going to the grave, something else happens.”

70. “Whatever I will become will be what God has chosen for me.”

71. “I learned how important it is to entertain people and give them a reason to come and watch you play.”

72. “The road to love is full of danger signs.”

73. “I’m so lucky to be in the position to give. It’s really a gift to give.”

74. “The child needs a helping hand, or he’ll grow up to be an angry young man someday.”

75. “Love had surely made us all, and hate would surely make us fall.”

76. “When I first saw you with your smile so tender, my heart was captured, my soul surrendered.”

77. “Take my hand, take my whole life too, but I can’t help falling in love with you.”

78. “Let us make this night of magic, and make it a night of love.”

79. “When we kiss, my heart’s on fire, burning with a strange desire.”

80. “We’re caught in a trap. I can’t walk out because I love you too much, baby.”

81. “In my beach shack, we’ll be alone. In my beach shack, I’ll make you feel at home.”

82. “Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfill. For my darling, I love you, and I always will.”

83. “I know that every time I kiss you, that your heart’s on fire, too.”

84. “When we’re dancing, it almost feels the same. I’ve got to stop myself from whispering your name.”

85. “Well, my hands are shaky, and my knees are weak. I can’t seem to stand on my own two feet.”

86. “Fate had me playing in love with you as my sweetheart.”

87. “Your kisses lift me higher like the sweet song of a choir. You light my morning sky with burning love.”

88. “Memories pressed between the pages of my mind. Memories sweetened through the ages just like wine.”

89. “One night of sin is what I’m now paying for.”

90. “Make me feel at home. If you really care, scratch my back and run your pretty fingers through my hair.”

91. “I was an only child, and my mother was always right with me all my life. I used to get very angry at her when I was growing up. It’s a natural thing.”

92. “I was training to be an electrician. I suppose I got wired the wrong way round somewhere along the line.”

93. “More than anything else, I want the folks back at home to think right of me.”

94. “There are too many people that depend on me. I’m too obligated. I’m in too far to get out.”

95. “The only thing worse than watching a bad movie is being in one.”

96. “When I got out of high school, I was driving a truck. I was just a poor boy from Memphis.”

97. “Just because I managed to do a little something, I don’t want anyone back home to think I got the big head.”

98. “I’m so nervous. I’ve always been nervous, ever since I was a kid.”

99. “I’d just like to be treated like a regular customer.”

100. “I knew by heart all the dialogue of James Dean’s films. I could watch Rebel Without a Cause a hundred times over.”

101. “The closest I ever came to getting married was just before I started singing. In fact, my first record saved my neck.”

102. “I don’t think I’m bad for people. If I did think I was bad for people, I would go back to driving a truck, and I really mean this.”

103. “My fans want my shirt. They can have my shirt. They put it on my back.”

104. “A lot of people seem to think I started this business. But rock and roll was here a long time before I came along.”

105. “Maybe it’s my early training singing gospel hymns. I’m limp as a rag, worn out when a show’s over.”

106. “Let’s don’t let a good thing die when honey, you know I’ve never lied to you.”

107. “Come on over here and love me. You know what I want you to say.”

108. “Girl, girl, girl, girl, you gonna set me on fire.”

109. “When I’m near the girl that I love best, my heart beats, so it scares me to death.”

110. “Well, a hard-headed woman, a soft-hearted man been the cause of trouble ever since the world began.”

111. “Keep on dancing. I’m about to have myself a fit.”

112. “Some people get their kicks stomping on a dream.”

113. “Fools rush in, so here I am, very glad to be unhappy.”

114. “My old heart ain’t gaining any ground because my angel eyes ain’t here.”

115. “It’s such an ancient pitch but one that I would never switch ’cause there’s no nicer witch than you.”

116. “Just take a walk down Lonely Street to Heartbreak Hotel.”

117. “Wise men say only fools rush in. But I can’t help falling in love with you.”

118. “Lying by your side, I watch you sleeping.”

119. “Baby, close your eyes and listen to the music drifting through a summer breeze.”

120. “Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true. Baby, if I made you mad for something I might have said, please let’s forget the past. The future looks bright ahead.”

121. “People ask me where I got my singing style. I didn’t copy my style from anybody.”

122. “The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doing now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.”

123. “I did the Ed Sullivan show four times. I did the Steve Allen show. I did the Jackie Gleason show.”

124. “I think I have something tonight that’s not quite correct for evening wear. Blue suede shoes.”

125. “I have no use for bodyguards, but I have very specific use for two highly trained certified public accountants.”

126. “My daddy knew a lot of guitar players, and most of them didn’t work, so he said, ‘You should make your mind up to either be a guitar player or an electrician.'”

127. “I was out of the service and making movies again. My first picture was called GI Blues. I thought I was still in the army.”

128. “Man, that record came out and was real big in Memphis. They started playing it, and it got real big. Don’t know why the lyrics had no meaning.”

129. “In public, I like real conservative clothes. Something that’s not too flashy, but onstage, I like them as flashy as you can get them.”

130. “I miss my singing career very much.”

131. “The first time that I appeared on stage, it scared me to death. I really didn’t know what all the yelling was about. I didn’t realize that my body was moving. It’s a natural thing to me. So to the manager backstage, I said, ‘What’d I do? What’d I do?’ And he said, ‘Whatever it is, go back and do it again.'”

132. “From the time I was a kid, I always knew something was going to happen to me. Didn’t know exactly what.”

133. “I like to sing ballads the way Eddie Fisher does and the way Perry Como does. But the way I’m singing now is what makes the money.”

134. “I don’t believe I’d sing the way I do if God hadn’t wanted me to.”

135. “I’ve been getting some bad publicity, but you got to expect that.”

136. “I get tired of playing a guy who gets into a fight, then starts singing to the guy he’s just beat up.”

137. “It’s not how much you have that makes people look up to you. It’s who you are.”

138. “I ain’t no saint, but I’ve tried never to do anything that would hurt my family or offend God.”

139. “I’m left, you’re right, and she’s gone. You’re right, and I’m left all alone.”

140. “The Lord can give, and the Lord can take away. I might be herding sheep next year.”

141. “If I can’t have your love now, baby, there won’t be nothing left behind.”

142. “A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It’s my favorite part of the business, live concerts.”

143. “Rock and roll is a music, and why should a music contribute to juvenile delinquency?”

144. “The walls have ears, ears that hear each little sound you make every time you stamp, throw a lamp.”

145. “Rock and roll music, if you like it, if you feel it, you can’t help but move to it. That’s what happens to me. I can’t help it.'”

146. “I feel my temperature rising. Help me. I’m flaming. I must be a hundred and nine.”

147. “I don’t want to be a tiger. Tigers play too rough. I don’t want to be a lion ’cause lions ain’t the kind you love up.”

148. “You only pass through this life once, Jack. You don’t come back for an encore.”

149. “At Heartbreak Hotel where I’ll be, where I get so lonely, baby.”

150. “Gonna travel, gonna travel wild and free I’m gonna pack my bags because this great big world is calling me.”

151. “I’ll never feel comfortable taking a strong drink, and I’ll never feel easy smoking a cigarette. I just don’t think those things are right for me.”

152. “I don’t do any vulgar movements.”

153. “Those people in New York are not gonna change me none.”

154. “I sure lost my musical direction in Hollywood. My songs were the same conveyer belt, mass production, just like most of my movies were.”

155. “I’m strictly for Stevenson. I don’t dig the intellectual bit, but I’m telling you, man, he knows the most.”

156. “My movements are all leg movements. I don’t do nothing with my body.”

157. “When I get married, it’ll be no secret.”

158. “I’ve never gotten over what they call stage fright. I go through it every show. I’m pretty concerned. I’m pretty much thinking about the show. I never get completely comfortable with it, and I don’t let the people around me get comfortable with it, in that I remind them that it’s a new crowd out there, it’s a new audience, and they haven’t seen us before. So it’s got to be like the first time we go on.” 

159. “The first car I bought was the most beautiful car I’ve ever seen.”

160. “I happened to come along in the music business when there was no trend.”

161. “Later on, they send me to Hollywood to make movies. It was all new to me. I was only 21 years old.”

162. “Well, by God, I’ll tell you something, friend—I have never been strung-out in my life, except on music!”

163. “We do two shows a night for five weeks. A lot of times, we’ll go upstairs and sing until daylight—gospel songs. We grew up with it. It more or less puts your mind at ease. It does mine.”

164. “I don’t like people who are in politics for themselves and not for others. You want that? You can go into show business.”

165. “Man, I was tame compared to what they do now. Are you kidding? I didn’t do anything but just jiggle.”

166. “I believe in the Bible. I believe that all good things come from God.”

167. “There will be peace in the valley for me, someday. There will be peace in the valley for me, oh Lord, I pray.”

168. “Viva Las Vegas with your neon flashing and your one-arm bandits crashing all those hopes down the drain.”

169. “Envy someone, and it pulls you down. Admire them, and it builds you up. Which makes more sense?”

170. “Take care of the fans, and they will sure as hell take care of you.”

171. “I can’t win, but here I am more than glad to be unhappy.”

172. “All I want is to know the truth, to know and experience God.”

173. “I hope I didn’t bore you too much with my life story.”

174. “Everybody said it was a shame because her momma was working on the chain gang.”

175. “I go for all the belles, except the wedding kind.” 

176. “I love only one girl, one in every town.”

177. “Some guys fall in love with one girl. I got to fall for two.”

178. “You’re so square, baby. I don’t care.”

179. “I’ve spent a lifetime waiting for the right time. Now that you’re near, the time is here at last.”

180. “Make this fire in my soul, dear, forever burn.”

181. “I was almost always true to you.”

182. “You look like an angel, walk like an angel, talk like an angel.”

183. “Shall I stay? Would it be a sin if I can’t help falling in love with you?”

184. “Little sister, don’t you do what your big sister done.”

185. “I’m in town on a harem holiday.”

186. “Those movies sure got me into a rut.”

187. “In your face, the sweetness of a child.”

188. “Man, I really like Vegas.”

189. “I’m with a crowd but oh so alone.”

190. “Too much TV hurts movies.”

191. “I’ll stay in Memphis.”

192. “I was an overnight sensation.”

193. “Yeah, you ain’t never caught a rabbit, and you ain’t no friend of mine.”

194. “And the night, night is as black as the sea, oh yes.”

195. “What’s the good of reaching 90 if you waste 89?”

196. “Where could I go but to the Lord?”

197. “He holds his guitar like a Tommy gun.”

198. “Do the clam, do the clam, grab your barefoot baby by the hand.”

199. “I’m trying to keep a level head.”

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