Tony Bennett quotes:

I am very much inspired by the great masters of entertainment: Bob Hope, George Burns, Jimmy Durante - who never thought about retiring. When people ask me if I plan to retire, I say, "Retire to what? I am doing what I love best right now!"

The bottom line of any country is: what did we contribute to the world? We contributed Louis Armstrong.

Luckily for his audiences, Bennett doesn't tire of singing I Left My Heart. ... that song made me a world citizen. And when I do it, it always feels like the first time.

I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today.

If you follow your passion, you'll never work a day in your life.

I've been so fortunate because I never really had ups and downs as far as my career. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I've been sold out all over the world.

That song helped make me a world citizen. It allowed me to live, work and sing in any city on the globe. It changed my whole life.

Every city I go to is an opportunity to paint, whether it's Omaha or Hawaii.

I always feel the audience is my best teacher.

I have to say I owe my career to the master composers of the Great American Songbook who have written such high-quality songs - the best popular music ever composed.

I plan to do my next two albums with Lady Gaga . She is quite a talent.

I think if you have a passion for what you do then there are no limitations on how long or how much you can accomplish.

I have a simple life. I mean, you just give me a drum roll, they announce my name, and I come out and sing. In my job I have a contract that says I'm a singer. So I sing.

It's the kind of turn that happened to the great country of Germany, when Nazis came over and created tragic things, and they had to be told off. And if we continue this kind of violence and accept it in our country, the rest of the world's going to really take care of us, in a very bad way.

I still insist that American performers are the best performers in the world.

Don't try to be just like some other singer hitting it big - find your own style and be honest in your performances. And never underestimate your audience.

I consider myself a method singer, not a method actor. I applied method acting to singing.

I don't look down to an audience. I look up to them. They respond to quality.

I have a very strong passion to sing and paint. I'm really a student.

I have an awful lot to learn. My dream is to get better and better as I get older.

I have been very fortunate to have been able to make a living from what I love to do best - performing and singing for people.

The young people look great on television. They're youthful and have a lot of zip and energy, but when you see them live, they can only do about 20 minutes because they haven't got the training to hold an audience for an hour and a half or so.

"Benedetto" means the "blessed one" and I feel that I have truly been blessed.

I attended the High School of Industrial Arts and studied with many great artists as painting is something that you never stop learning about. Actually, in high school there was a time that I was thinking about just concentrating on painting and I asked my music teacher, Mr. Sondberg, for advice and he encouraged me to stick with the music as well. So all my life I have been singing and painting.

I can't ask for more out of life, and the more I learn, the less I know.

I don't disrespect the audience. I only sing very well-written, intelligent songs.

I have always loved jazz music and as a teen growing up in New York City and then later on as an adult have great memories of the jazz clubs that were all located on 52nd Street. I still catch as many jazz shows as I can when I am in New York. And when I perform, I have my jazz quartet by my side. Jazz musicians keep things spontaneous and very "live," which is the way I like to perform.

I knew very early that somehow I would sing and draw and paint my whole life.

I left my heart in San Francisco, high on a hill, it calls to me. To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars, the morning fog may chill the air, I don't care. My love waits there in San Francisco, above the blue and windy sea, when I come home to you, San Francisco , your golden sun will shine for me.

I think in all of the arts there are just certain people that have a gift. I think it's a certain spirituality, it's a God-given gift that just certain individuals have.

I think one of the reasons I'm popular again is because I'm wearing a tie. You have to be different.

I think there's an opportunity for a couple of them for sure, maybe more depending upon the situation, but it's too early to say which ones. It's a pretty competitive fight. And that doesn't mean the older guys are just going to walk into spots. I remind them all the time - you got to earn everything you get. And that's what made our team good last year, is guys really competed for opportunities and understood their roles.

I try to tell the story about the song with the believability that I've lived it myself and I understand what it's all about.

I'd like to have every gentleman and lady in this room commit themselves to get our government to legalize drugs, so they have to get it through a doctor, not just some gangsters who sell it under the table. Let's legalize drugs like they did in Amsterdam. No one's hiding or sneaking around corners to get it. They go to a doctor to get it.

If you are creative, you get busier as you get older.

I'm not the type of person who likes to look backwards. I've always felt compelled to move forward and I've never been one to dwell in the past. All the people I've met, all the places I've been, and all the things that I've done have simply been part of who I am.

I'm still learning about music. The best way to learn is to listen to the audience. When you listen to the audience, they will tell you what they like. I wish these big corporations, instead of telling the audience what they should have, would listen.

Intimate singing had a wonderful style in the '30s and '40s. It came out of Broadway and the jazz of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holliday. But Sinatra created the best romantic era that we've ever had.

It helps to know there is going to be continuity.

It's really quite a situation. It's ridiculous. I make $200,000, $300,000 a night. For years I was working little dives, and if I got $700 a week, I'd say, "Wow, I'm really cooking.

I've taken stuff from people, too. You know though, if you steal from one person, you're just a thief. But if you steal from everyone, that's research.

Just give a drum roll, announce my name & I come out & sing. I have a contract that says I'm a singer. So I sing.

More than anybody else I'd like to thank Count Basie for teaching me how to perform.

My goal as a creative person is to express truth and beauty in whatever I do

No-one will ever sound as good as Judy Garland as far as I am concerned.

Regardless of religion or race or ethnic background we are all human and we are all on this planet together. So what better reason do you need to not tolerate any form of violence against another human being?

Someday, when I'm awfully low, and the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you, and the way you look tonight.

Sometimes the teacher would tell me that if you're singing a love song and you just don't feel it with a person or something you've experienced, just think of a dog or cat that you love.

The biggest message I've given our team, and I think it's really important, is first of all, no one can take away what happened last year. It's obviously a fun year, a terrific year. But I think a big mistake would be to try to compare themselves or ourselves to last year's team. I think the key really is, and I told them this: for you as a group, you're a different team.

There's always something every night that I learn from reacting to what the audience is reacting to. You learn what to leave out, what to put in, if you need a little more comedy or more drama.

To work is to feel alive.

We're in an era where the demand is for immediate hits that are destined to become obsolescent. Six months later, everyone forgets the artist and the tune. It's become like a con job. Producers, engineers, lawyers and accountants all make money, but the artists don't.

What I really search for is something that I really love hearing, something that's my own private game: If I find a song I really like, I try to do a definitive version.

When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops being art.

You can't teach it [jazz singing]. There's nobody who can teach you how to sing jazz. Either you know how to sing jazz, or you don't.