China's got a billion people and a hit record over there is a million records. You know that ain't right.
With all the negativity going on in the world right now, people need an escape. When you give them a hit record or a great record, it allows them to escape for at least three to four minutes. They're not thinking bills or economy or immigration or war when you create that kind of ambiance.
I've been around for such a long time. My first hit record was over 20 years ago and the people who bought my records then are married now and they probably still play these records and their children like them.
People are always coming up to me, thinking I've got some magic wand that can make them a star and I want to tell them that no one can do that. Making hit records is not that easy. But it took me time to realize that myself.
A lot of people do records, and they get hit records, but we were blessed with a lot of monsters. 'Oh Carolina' was a very monstrous record in 1993; so was 'Boombastic,' 'Angel' and 'It Wasn't Me.'
I make hit records. I make hit records to motivate the people.
Even though there's no forum for me on the radio for the kind of music I sing anymore, I am still excited about having a career where I can sing the best music in the world, and people will come and hear me because of the hit records I've had in the past.
People didn't know I played guitar on all the hit records I had. I've never been in an acoustic guitar magazine and I'd put myself up against anybody.
I always say this to people: 'If Shaq can be in the NBA for 19 years and dominate for 19 years using his body, why can't I be in the music industry for 50 years using my brain when my brain is way stronger than anyone's body?' I have to have a successful record company, more hit records. I want to dominate the game.
People who look down never get much of an idea of the sky where the stars are set. And the fellow who doesn't hitch at least one or two of his wagons to a star never gets very high up. Get your eyes off the ground. Look ahead.
I didn't know it at the time, but Hitch didn't want to talk to me - he hated meeting with people he might have to reject. As it turned out, someone, maybe his agent, insisted that he interview me.
The act of seeing any film generally is you knowing more than the characters, even if it's the classic Hitchcock shot of two people talking and a bomb being under the table. Part of the pleasure of it is seeing where people go wrong, and the irony of situations.
On the night of the winter solstice, when the dead get their annual reprieve, they go up to the 24-hour donut shop and wedding chapel to get hitched. Marriage is a good and proper pursuit for dead people. For a while, it relieves the dark, shuddering loneliness of the afterlife.
People don't understand real musicians anymore. Jack White is great - he's the real thing - but he isn't having hits.
A man has to have goals - for a day, for a lifetime - and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived.'
Who would people rather see, a real hitter hitting home runs or a pitcher swinging a wet newspaper?
I don't try to intimidate anybody before a fight. That's nonsense. I intimidate people by hitting them.
I enjoy being the messenger for God in terms of letting people know about HIV and AIDS.
Some countries that I go to are still trying to deny that it's happening. In India, 2.1 million people are living with HIV AIDS. India manufactures most of the drugs that are used to cure HIV around the world, which is an amazing, amazing fact that most people don't know.
A lot has changed since the 1980s, when the United States was a country with one of the greatest numbers of people infected with HIV.
