I don't think I'm turning back the clock by doing these old tunes. I love rock and roll and popular music. It's just that the spirits of the singers whose songs I do are living within me. That's why the songs come out in the voices of the original singers. I'm not doing imitations. That's the way they sound inside me.
— Tiny Tim
Night after night in the '50s, I traveled all over New York City. The promoter had 10 acts, and the winner each night would get five dollars; second place would get three dollars, and third place would get two dollars. He always put the best acts on last so the people wouldn't walk out, and the worst acts went on first. He always put me on first.
The only thing I pray for is the strength to go out without complaining.
I had this image before Boy George, before the Beatles, before the Rolling Stones.
When I first went on the 'Johnny Carson show', the band did not want me, and Carson did not want me. If the audience had not received 'Tiptoe' so overwhelmingly, I do not believe Carson would have let me come over to be on the panel after the song.
I don't believe in Women's Liberation. No, no, no, no, no. Not at all.
The only thing I think of is the next hit record.
If the cap ain't on my Crest, if it's squeezed from the middle and not the bottom, there's a problem.
The devil reigns in me more than in any man I can think of.
I knew that someday I would be discovered.
America lost its face with the debacle of the Vietnam War.
As long as those pretty girls notice me, I don't care if they say, 'Ghastly, horrible'... I live for the beautiful angels.
There is nothing like youth.
There are a lot of ups and downs. But there are always people who have it worse.
I was in Australia in 1983 and did a stunt in a lion's cage.
I had this old wind-up phonograph when I was a kid, and I'd listen to records. And the radio.
It was not easy to go into a subway in 1955 at eight o'clock in the morning smelling nice and hanging on the rails with white make-up. I could see people nudging each other saying, 'What is that?'
I always bring my little ukelele along in my shopping bag which my dear, sweet father bought me. After all, you just never know when a song might come along.
As long as you're recording and they pay the fee, it's like a lottery ticket. You never stop trying.
I am ready for anything that happens.
One day in 1952, I woke up with a high voice.
I love the past. I read about the past all the time.
I don't believe in birth control.
If you go back to the minors, you have to start swinging and hitting the ball again. I've been in the minors since the '70s semipros, let's put it that way.
I want to get a hit record, and I know I can be good in horror movies.
I always wanted to be a big star.
If the club was empty, I sang to the chairs.
I think they should give me a spot on 'Dallas' or 'Dynasty' or one of those shows.
Better to marry unhappily 100 times than to live happily forever in sin.
I'm like a pitcher. I'm either on or off.
We've all got setbacks.
You sing fast and hope to get out.
I don't know why, but I felt as if I was always behind the eight ball, so to speak.
We hear about the Gershwins, the Kerns, and the Berlins, but there were some great little writers like Theodore Morse, Charles K. Harris, and Ernest R. Ball, who wrote 'Let the Rest of the World Go By.'
I always love the smell of a bat and a glove, or a hockey puck in the winter time.
In this business, you're as good as your last hit record, and mine was more than 26 years ago.
Boy George was only 7 years old when I was hot in '68.
At the start of the '50s, I had short hair. And I was getting nowhere.
I believe that President Nixon was right in what he did at Watergate. Lack of respect for authority and things like socialism are turning this into a weak, effeminate country.
I'm a very difficult person to live with.
I'm the type of person, I cannot waste time.
I don't want people to think lm hypocritical.
Whenever I sang, I said to myself, 'Maybe tonight.' I would never let down, no matter how few people were listening.
I read in one of the scandal sheets that there are UFO aliens living right now down deep in the Antarctic. I believe those things.
The biggest blunder in the history of this country was when President Truman pulled General MacArthur out of China.
Some of the best things in life cost just $2.
When a person attacks, it's rough.
I keep recording and recording, but they always stay on the rack and never get out there.
They say I spend too much money, so they take it and put it away for me. What do I spend it on? Oh, old records and presents and things.
My parents had to work hard, and I was always looking for a way to make it big - for their sakes as well as my own.
