At first, I wasn’t really keen on the idea of me being on stage having to sing in front of people.

I think fearless is having fears but jumping anyway.

I think one of my pursuits over the years is trying to answer the question of, ‚What else can you do with a voice other than stand in front of a microphone and sing?‘

I always said that I wouldn’t use a teleprompter, and if I start to sing real flat, I’ll hang it up.

I don’t have any oratory skills. But I would not use them if I had.

I’ve conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I’ve sang and danced at La Scala!

I spoke to a million in one service, in Korea, in Seoul. And that was the largest audience I ever have had.

Tell the audience what you’re going to say, say it; then tell them what you’ve said.

I still get very scared when I step in front of a live audience.

I have been – I have spoken in Bir Zeit a number of times.

I began singing in dive bars and really small clubs. I dragged my piano down the stairs, and I went down the street with my keyboard, and I would go to every different dive bar that I could get to agree to let me play. I’d call and pretend I was Lady Gaga’s manager.

I didn’t have to win, and winning wasn’t important to me. Being world champion wasn’t important to me. What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.

Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage, and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

Pretty much my whole life, I’ve been a performer and have loved singing and writing songs in my room for my own ears.

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

I love to sing and I really love to write, but in terms of being onstage, I’m not that comfortable, which I think is sort of clear.

Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.

I grew up in a musical family; the majority of my growing up was done in Hawaii. It’s what we do. You sing, you dance, you play ukulele and you drink.

Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.

I booked my first studio at like 12 or 13. Somewhere in that season of my life, singing along with the radio became me wanting to be on radio, you know. And writing Langston Hughes replica poems became me wanting to write like Stevie Wonder.

In oratory the will must predominate.

Face your fears and doubts, and new worlds will open to you.

I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don’t want to meet them.

I realised a little bit to my astonishment that I can give a lecture for a thousand people, and there will be this tumultuous applause, so, you know, I have the feeling well, it can’t be all that bad.

Who’s to say what’s a good voice and not a good voice?

In my opinion, the only way to conquer stage fright is to get up on stage and play. Every time you play another show, it gets better and better.

When I was younger and did a stand-up gig, it would take me two weeks to recover. Sometimes I’d get so panicked that I would stutter.

The music we do is for people to enjoy, dance and sing to it. Dreamers – keep on dreaming and keep working hard to achieve your goals. There are many difficulties, but what matters is to stay focused and have perseverance.

I had to get rich so I could sing like I was poor again.

The Four Levels of Comedy: Make your friends laugh, Make strangers laugh, Get paid to make strangers laugh, and Make people talk like you because it’s so much fun.

I go onstage and I talk, and I remember what I’m saying, and I track it.

I could imagine at a certain age, when I have no vocal cords left, that I would find a young man who could sing my parts for me. But I don’t see why I would stop.

I’d love to do a musical. I’ve been known to have a good step or two. I’m half Samoan, you know, and part of our culture is singing and dancing daily.

Wherever I go meeting the public… spreading a message of human values, spreading a message of harmony, is the most important thing.

I used to sing songs and write with my uncle, Bill Owens.

I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing.

When I’m up there, and I know the show’s coming to a close, in my head I’m saying to myself, Oh man, you gotta get off and be a normal person again. That’s what I don’t like so much.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

I don’t know, I feel desperate when I sing. And I look desperate – it feels like I’m singing for my life, which makes me twitch, if that makes sense.

They’ve got this crazy actor who’s 82 years old up there in a suit. I was a mayor, and they’re probably thinking I know how to give a speech, but even when I was mayor I never gave speeches. I gave talks.

If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.

I’ve had the honor of speaking at many commencements.

I couldn’t talk to people face to face, so I got on stage and started screaming and squealing and twitching.

I think, generally, I just cannot really envision life without writing and producing records and singing.

I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.

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.

Doing Saturday Night Live definitely affects my relationship with my girlfriend and with my family, because you feel so much pressure to do well that night. But I think everyone’s grown to accept that and so they give me my space at the show.

When you’re all singing together, it brings things together. I know the songs that my grandfather and my father sang.

Sometimes I wish I had taken the Bob Dylan route and sang songs where my voice would not go out on me every night, so I could have a career if I wanted.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t make a political speech outside of my state for 20 years.

I know I’m talented, but I wasn’t put here to sing. I was put here to be a wife and a mom and look after my family. I love what I do, but it’s not where it begins and ends.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.

For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that – is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?