Neil Sedaka

Musician

1939-03-13

Quotes by Neil Sedaka

• My teachers said, 'Always keep a Beethoven sonata under your fingers.' I always have. I still play chamber music, and I always play classical.

  Read quote

• The spiritual writing of the song is where you're chosen as a vehicle, and it comes from something up above. You don't move; it writes itself. It's very spooky, but that's happened to me just a few times.

  Read quote

• Between 1958 and 1963, I sold about 40 million records - to the shock of my mother and father because I was always playing Beethoven. But I bought my mother a mink stole. She was very happy, and she said, 'I think this is better than Beethoven.'

  Read quote

• I was driving my 1959 Chevy Impala down King's Highway in Brooklyn with the top down, and I heard 'Oh! Carol' on three stations at the same time while I was channel surfing. I knew then that I made it.

  Read quote

• I knew I had a remarkable voice, but I was embarrassed because it was so high. But when I sang at my bar mitzvah, the rabbi was in tears. He said to my parents, 'He must become a cantor in the synagogue,' but my mother said, 'No, he's going to be a concert pianist.'

  Read quote

• Tra-la-las and doo-be-do's became a Neil Sedaka trademark. I was the king of the tra-la-las and doo-be-do's in the '50s and '60s. But then when I re-recorded 'Breaking Up,' I started with a verse instead of the doo-be-do's!

  Read quote

• Andy Warhol was a good friend of mine. We used to go to the Studio 54 nightclub together with the likes of Liza Minnelli, and we'd dance through the night.

  Read quote

• I was from very poor people: 11 of us in a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. I wanted the large houses, the cars, jets, and yacht.

  Read quote