"I'd go and usually have a pint of Guinness and a chaser to steady my nerves. Then I'd go to the hospital and I'd sle...

"My life was getting worse, not better, and it should have been getting better, because I've accomplished all the thi...

It was the summer of 1966 when a persistent 17-year-old with a high school radio show near Chicago got the interview ...

"If I told you all the stories about what happened to people if they were caught listening to jazz." - Dave Brubeck i...

"I'm playing these records. The phone rings and I pick it up: 'WAHR'. And this lady's voice--I can still hear her voi...

"What's wrong with being fat? That's what I want to know." - Jim Morrison Interview by Howard Smith TheSmithTapes.co...

"If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything." - David Foster Wallace Interview by Leonard ...

"There's a way we talk and it includes profanity. We never figured we'd be arrested for it." - Mike "Mike D" Diamond ...

"I think a lot of ladies found me so attractive because I was different." - Wilt Chamberlain Original interview aire...

"Black is not a color; it's an attitude. It's the attitude of independence, respect and dignity." - James Brown Inte...

"I still think the same way I thought as a child. I still worry. I'm still frightened... Nothing changes." - Maurice ...

"You've got to be good or as bad as the devil. ... Even if we had two, three days off I still had to blow that horn a...

"I've got on these stiletto heels aimed for his face." - Farrah Fawcett Interview by Lawrence Grobel 1994, Hollywood

"If this Revolution falls, what we will have here in Cuba is a hell. Hell itself." - Fidel Castro Clark Hewitt Gallo...

"In my insides, it really hurts if someone doesn't like me. It's silly." - Janis Joplin Howard Smith interviewed Jan...

"If somebody don't like something that I do, that's his or her prerogative. Just like it's mine." - Ray Charles.  Jo...

"I even thought that I was gay. I thought that might be the solution to my problem." - Kurt Cobain Interview by Jon ...

"When we fell in with the Acid Tests we a started having the most fun we had ever had." - Jerry Garcia Interview by ...

"He turned to me suddenly and asked: 'Is that a Givenchy you're wearing?' And I said, 'why how clever of you, Mr. Pre...

"If I was white I would have been like John Wayne... I feel like a tragic hero in a Shakespeare play" - Tupac Shakur ...

"There is the fear that you somehow neglected to say what was really yours to say" - John Updike Interview by John F...

"When a man is making love, the last thing he thinks about is war" - Barry White Interview by Joe Smith April 3, 198...

"When I looked in his eyes, he was there. He was home... I had a dad." - Carol Burnett Interview by Leonard Lopate A...

"I've done some dastardly things, but what can I do except make amends and apologize?" - Stan Getz Interview by Joe ...

"My nervous energy is usually the easiest form of energy to tap into" - Heath Ledger Interview by Christine Spines F...

"I just hope and pray I can die with my boots on" - Johnny Cash, 1996 Interview by Barney Hoskyns

"It's all true, folks: all you need is love." - John Lennon, 1969 Interviews by Howard Smith

"On stage or in the movies I could do whatever I wanted to. I was free." - Gene Wilder, March 2007 Conversation with...

"I never really felt like a rock singer or a rock star. I always felt a little bit out of my element" - David Bowie ...

"Learning how to die is therefore learning how to live" - Philip Seymour Hoffman Conversation with Simon Critchley r...

"It's very humbling to imagine somebody else's really life and their pain ... It's my drug" - Meryl Streep Interview...

"When things get too heavy just call me helium--the lightest known gas to man." - Jimi Hendrix in his final interview

"My singing… i'll just say it simple as possible: it's just godly." - Michael Jackson in January 1980

"I think men have got to change an awful lot. They still prefer the little woman." - Bette Davis in 1963

"Anyone that dares begrudge what I have today, just better get off their duff and do something about it" - Liberace i...

"The only way you can be a mark is if you want something for nothing. If you're greedy, you're set up." - Maya Angelo...

"I'm pouring my guts out so they can feel like your guts at the same time." - Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips in 2002

"Comedy is there to basically show us we fart, we laugh. To make us realize we still are part animal.... So you don't...

"If I knew how it was going to end, I probably wouldn't write it." - Tom Robbins in 1994, as told to Tod Mesirow

"A lot of people are kind of depressed. I'm happy some of the time, and some of the time I'm not." - Elliott Smith in...

"I don't like to feel that I owe anything. I like to feel that I pay my own way, no free lunch." - B.B. King on Septe...

"I write a song called 'Heroin', you would have thought that I murdered the Pope or something" - Lou Reed on March 2...

"Mama just always said, 'you be what you are and you don't have to worry about nothing'" - Dolly Parton as told to L...

"Nobody else is going to give a damn what you're doing, so you need a few other people like yourself" - Ray Bradbury ...

"I want to be the force which is truly for good." - John Coltrane in 1966, as told Frank Kofsky

"I didn’t like the sound of people gasping at the mere mention of my name. It horrified me." - Joni Mitchell in 1986,...

" I have no faith at all. I only hold convictions." - Ayn Rand on February 25, 1959, as told to Mike Wallace

"I have innate confidence that I am right. Partially out of conviction and partially as a pose." - Roger Ebert in 1990

"I did as much as I could do at that time in my life ... I tried as hard as I could and I couldn't do better" - Dust...

“I keep my mouth shut now. I’ve turned into a professional coward.” - Hunter S. Thompson in 1967

"I don’t know what the ‘big time’ is" - Tom Waits in 1988. Tom Waits had just released the concert film, Big Time, w...

"I'm sorry, I‘m a coward. I didn’t want to die." - Patty Hearst in 1982 in the first interview she gave after gettin...

"I‘m just an obnoxious guy who can make it appear charming, that’s what they pay me to do" - Bill Murray in October 1988

"Nothing means anything" - Kurt Vonnegut on November 8, 1970

"I feel more alive now than I ever have in my life. I have a chance to live, as I've dreamed." - Nina Simone in July,...

“My family was shocked when I came home with a volume of Hemingway … There was a price to be paid for being intereste...

“I wish that there had been another woman on my flight. I think it would have been a lot easier.” - Sally Ride in 198...

“Any man who really has faith in himself will be dubbed arrogant by his fellows” - Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957, as tol...

""Everything in my mind works like a search engine set for the image function."" - Temple Grandin in 2008, from an or...

"Animals were my passion from even before I could speak apparently. When I was about 10, 11 I fell in love with Tarza...

"I have to make my life worth saving, and each day you spend as if it would be your last" - Dame Stephanie Shirley in...

"I must reorganize the environment of man by which then greater numbers of men can prosper." - Buckminster Fuller in ...

"The key was somehow to know what was important and what was not important, what was exciting, because I can’t learn ...

"A literal reading of the Bible simply is a mistake; I mean it’s just wrong" - Carl Sagan on October 4, 1985, as told...

"Sometimes when it all comes together ... you become the film you’re making." - Martin Scorsese in 1990, as told to T...

“When people say fuckin‘ shit, they don‘t think of a big turd, or two people makin‘ it anymore” - Patti Smith in May ...

“I’m a cookie-decorating mom. I don’t bake them. I decorate them.“ - Cher in 1999, as told to Benjamin Svetkey. On a...

”The most unfettered imagination belongs to young people, and they don’t walk through life; they fly” - Rod Serling i...

"I don‘t think that there‘s a girl around that would fit in with what we do" - Frank Zappa on June 6, 1971, as told t...

“I'm never going to become rich and famous” - Bob Dylan in 1962. This interview originally aired on WBAI FM in New Y...

"It’s okay being a woman now. I like it. Try it some time.” - Nora Ephron. This interview by Studs Terkel with Nora ...

"I have never used my body. I have played roles where the legs were used and the body was used but in life, I have ne...

"If you want to preserve your power indefinitely, you have to get the consent of the ruled" - Aldous Huxley. In this...

"If God didn't want me to sing it, he wouldn't have given me the talent to do it“ - Stevie Wonder in 2005. Barney Ho...

“How did I get over being poor? I got a job as a sports announcer and it led to everything else.“ - Ronald Reagan. ...

“Although I have prayed a good bit, and do, I've never asked God to let me be President.“ This conversation was reco...

“I don’t feel any compulsion just to stand under the spotlight night after night unless I have something to say“ Thi...

”Death is on the back of everyone’s minds whether they want to admit it or not.” This interview was recorded on Jul...

“We think in a different way as children. We tend to think around corners instead of in straight lines.“ Conversati...

”I’m very interested in how people adapt to extremes” This interview was recorded on July 28, 1996 for the Cover-to...