Every Friday I used to have about fifty, sixty kids who would wait for me on Sunset Boulevard and I'd take them all to dinner. All runaways.
As long as you gave it your best shot, even if in the opinion of others 'you failed,' you didn't fail.
America gets the politicians they deserve. That's it. And you keep struggling.
But find something that you absolutely love doing. And then get to love the way you do it. That's the uniqueness of all of us. That's it.
I know who I am. I don't have to brag. I know what I contributed. I know what I did. You think you can do it better? Hey, go right ahead. The stage is yours.
I have an old brain but a terrific memory.
If anything I consider myself an anarchist.
I probably worked every single entertainment medium, including some that don't exist. I worked the circus, carnival, I had my own medicine show, I worked 18 years of radio.
My secret for success? I don't know what the hell success means.
I think people need housing. And there's empty buildings, I think people should live in there. If you want to call them squatters, trespassers, hey, I call Wall Street thieves!
The ruling class is smarter than you, and they're more creative. And if you forget that lesson, you go down the drain. Because if they weren't, they wouldn't be around as long as they have been and as strong as they have been.
I went to all the Love-Ins. I took my kids. I enjoyed myself.
Understood what the struggle was about. My mother. Couldn't read or write, but she had more sense than many a graduate from Harvard.
What motivated me? My mother. My mother was an immigrant woman, a peasant woman, struggled all her life, worked in the garment center.
The struggle goes on. The victory is in the struggle, for me. And I accepted that a long time ago.
The United States, per capita, at a certain period in its history, had the most junkies of any country ever in the world - right after the Civil War. The most brutal war, the greatest amount of casualties that America's ever had.
I prefer that for my own satisfaction over radio, there's no audience. TV, there's no audience. I need the response of the audience, even if it's a silent response.
I'm more important to me than any body you can mention. Do you know that?
Oscar Wilde said the rich and the poor are equal - they can both sleep under the bridge. Right? Do they have a right? You're damn right they have a right!
I was an organizer in the Food, Agricultural and Tobacco Workers Union down in North Carolina.
