Top 222 Elvis Quotes

There were the phone calls and Elvis had asked me to visit him in Los Angeles. This was in 1962.

As you know, I played a little trumpet with Elvis. I overdub a few drum licks here and there on a session, but I’m not a drummer by any means.

I think Elvis would be alive today, probably, if he had been allowed to mix and mingle with his fans. I think it was a great cross for him to bear that he couldn’t get out and be with his fans.

That little Miley Cyrus… she’s like a little Elvis. The kids love her because she’s Hannah Montana, but what people don’t realize about her is she is such a fantastic singer and songwriter. She writes songs like she’s 40 years old!

Ice Cube went straight outta Compton to hearing, ‘Are we there yet?’ Eddie Murphy blew up striding across the stage in a red leather ensemble that would have made Elvis Presley chuckle, yet is probably best known to anyone born in the 21st century as the overly chatty donkey from ‘Shrek.’

If it weren’t for Liberace, there would be no Madonna or Lady Gaga, Elton John, Bette Midler, or Elvis because it was Liberace who helped the King glitz up his act.

Do you realize that I have had five albums in the Top 30. Elvis and The Beatles have never done that. I had five singles in the Top 5, I mean, no one’s ever done that.

I saw an Elvis Presley movie Jailhouse Rock, where he gets out of jail and makes his own records and takes them to the radio stations himself. And then, he puts records in the store. After seeing that, I made records an put them in stores.

When I heard Elvis Presley, then I knew I had to do music. Music is my god, and is the only love that has never left me. It has always been there and is my best friend.

On my US tour maybe three out of 30 shows there was an Elvis impersonator in the crowd but that’s it. I usually get younger fans, and those that come that are of an older generation end up walking out because it’s too loud.

I once made a giant six-foot can of Crisco that a person had to dance in and that had an Elvis wig on top.

My mom bought me a guitar when I was 12 and I used to pretend that I was a rock star in my own room. I was also obsessed with Elvis as a kid.

I’m just glad to be feeling better. I really thought I’d be seeing Elvis soon.

I’m not Elvis. I don’t get chased by paparazzi.

But I still do believe that there are useful things to say about Elvis Presley, including what his own ordinariness as a poor Southerner says about 20th-century hero-making.

U2 have a lot of religion, also people like Johnny Cash and Elvis. Those people weren’t shy about it – it’s nice there are people who’ve come before that were open about it.

Iconic artists are never straight ahead. Michael Jackson loved Elvis and Burt Bacharach, and uniquely blended both of them into what he did.

A lost of people recognize me and maybe will ask for an autograph, but it’s nothing like if Elvis would’ve done something like that, ’cause he’s so popular, or maybe The Beatles ’cause they stirred up a lot of action.

I don’t know any Beatles songs. My dad never listened to Elvis or Sting or Bowie. Any band name that’s on a t-shirt, I probably won’t know their music, like AC/DC or whatever. I don’t know what that is. As a kid, I would sing along to artists like Tania Maria.

When I was 8, I thought I was Harrison Ford, Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Elvis, and Chuck Norris all at once.

Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis had enormous talent, and Elvis was the major contributor to an entirely new genre of music. Sometimes their exploits were distasteful to people, but they left behind an enormous body of work that endures.

I’m a fan of all music, and probably my first – well, not the very first music I listened to, but back in the late fifties, when I first started hearing rock & roll, it was definitely tinged with doo wop and also Elvis and all those great songs.

I can remember just learning to walk and trying to dance like Elvis and sing like Elvis, so I was very, very passionate about music at a very young age.

If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.

Religion can be the enemy of God. It’s often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building.

And if there’s any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there’s any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara.

In 1998, I received treatment for my knee by an Israeli therapist. We spoke about Israel and I mentioned ‘Scooterman’ and he just froze. It was like he had met Elvis. I thought he was kidding me and then he called his brother, they yelled to each other over the phone, and then I believed him.

My mom listened to the Beatles and Elvis, a lot of different types of music.

Elvis Presley was rock ‘n’ roll, I thought that was pretty mediocre. But since that time, the succeeding steps in music has been down, just more degradation. Then we got into punk rock, and now we are into rap music, which is a total oxymoron.

Liberace was a miracle. You talk about who he was and what he did, and then you look at who he inspired, from Elton John to Cher to Michael Jackson to Bette Midler. There are so many people that came to see him. Elvis was there, watching his shows.

Plenty of people detested Michael Jackson before his death wiped away the world’s collective memory. Timberlake was originally dismissed as just another boy-bander. Legions have joined in a ‘Hate Anne Hathaway’ movement. Elvis, the Rolling Stones, Kristen Bell, even Mozart had haters.

People are quite shocked when you remind them that Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra never wrote a song that they recorded in their lives, as far as I know.

The first record I bought was a Carl Perkins record, because I saw him at The Festival at Sandpoint, Idaho. I loved Elvis and I found out that he wrote ‘Blue Suede Shoes’… so connecting that experience of going to see him play was pretty awesome. That’s when I realised I wanted to play guitar.

By the time I was 25 or 26, I would have earned a million, but if you looked in the bank account, it’s not there because I’ve spent it. That’s what it’s there for. I don’t want to be the richest bloke in the graveyard. Look at Elvis.

I was an Elvis freak. That’s all I listened to growing up.

‘If I Can Dream’ is my all-time favorite Elvis song. It was a big record, but not as big as it could have been. It was one of those records where you’d think it sold 10 billion copies, but it didn’t.

Throughout the ’50s, tons of unknown locals came through Sun to record their demos. Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis all made their first recordings at the former Memphis Recording Service.

When I was a kid, I used to look in the mirror and pretend I was Elvis.

Elvis was the king. No doubt about it. People like myself, Mick Jagger and all the others only followed in his footsteps.

I was an avid collector of Elvis’ early stuff; for a young singer, he was an absolute inspiration. I soaked up what he did like blotting paper. It’s the same as being in school – you learn by copying the maestro.

The friendship I had with Elvis began to take shape in 1968 when I was recording in Memphis. I’d record during the day, and Elvis would send one of his guys over to bring me to Graceland at night. Everything you’ve heard about Graceland during Elvis’s glory days is true and then some.

A lot of your rock people, even early, like Elvis, have always come from the South.

I think to just single out a highlight of Elvis’s career is pretty much impossible. As far as being a fan of his, a lifetime fan, there were just too many highlights.

And I just remember, you know, breaking into tears and feeling so empty because, as long as Elvis was in the world, you always knew something was going and he always had something that kept everybody mesmerized.

I met the Colonel when Elvis was recording some song I’d written for one of his movies. Elvis was just having fun with the gang and all the Memphis boys and Colonel Parker was sitting over here in like a theater seat.

When I was a little kid, I was very impressed with Elvis.

I was always interested in having my own money – not my family’s money. I don’t think it had anything to do with me being Elvis’s granddaughter. None of my drive was, ‘I need to get away from my family legacy!’

I got the honor of traveling some with Kerry Von Erich. He was as close to a rock star as I’ve ever seen. He had a presence that when he walked into a room, it was like Elvis walking into the room.

I’m sure that Elvis was happy for me. I think he was the kind of guy that enjoyed other people’s success, especially if he had something to do with it.

I would like to do the Elvis Presley.

Diana Krall I met in, I think it was Canada. She’s a lovely lady. Her husband, Elvis Costello, is a great star.

I’m the world’s biggest Bob Seger fan. He’s like my Elvis.

Elvis was a sweet darling, shy fellow, but he was really boring.

If it was just me and Elvis one on one, which only happened once or twice in the times that I did see him, it was a really comfortable. He was a cool guy. Easy laugh, nice guy.

I like the Carpenters and Elvis.

Elvis deserves a lot of credit for bringing the blues to middle America, not the Vegas stuff. The early stuff, The Sun records, and the first few RCA records. He was wonderful, he had the power, the drive, and he was so dedicated to his music.

I was madly in love with Elvis Presley. Dad wasn’t into it at all, at least not for himself as a performer. He used to say, ‘Mr. Cole does not rock n’ roll.’

I grew up in the 60s, and before the 60s, my father was into Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash, so I heard those records all the time and soaked that up.

I have a very long and beautiful love affair with Elvis Presley. I own every record he ever made, so I have about 150, almost 200 records of his. So much that I haven’t even listened to all of them. I see an Elvis record that I don’t have, and I’ll buy it and put it in my collection.

I always thought that Elvis could have been a great actor, and that he was put in a lot of unimportant movies when he could have done a lot of great ones.

The Beatles and the Stones had Elvis and Hollywood, but when it came to my generation America meant Richard Nixon and Vietnam.

As a kid, I loved any guitarists, whether it was Elvis Presley, Lonnie Donegan, Chuck Berry or even the cowboy guitarists like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. The image of the guitar appealed to me.

When Elvis sang, it almost sounded like he was whispering. But after you heard the record, his voice was the strongest thing you ever heard. He was incredible.

Elvis’ songs will always be there, and I hope mine will be after I’m gone.

Music and fashion have had a kind of incestuous relationship since the Fifties. It started with people like Elvis Presley and pop icons like James Dean. Then it exploded in the MTV days. Now, with the Internet, it’s instantaneous.

Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and The Sex Pistols may come and go, but rebellion remains a key part of the rock n’ roll experience. However, that rebellion – the outgrowth of a youthful search for independence and identity – doesn’t always take the same form.

The atmosphere is so tense, if Elvis walked in, with a portion of chips… you could hear the vinegar sizzle on them.

One gets the impression that Elvis Presley does what his business advisors think will be most profitable. My advice to them: Put Elvis Presley in the studio with a bunch of good, contemporary rockers, lock the studio up, and tell him he can’t come out until he’s done made an album that rocks from beginning to end.

Bruce was famous, but not ‘Elvis famous.’ He was confident and lighthearted. Comfortable in his own skin. Or so it seemed.

I think Jerry Lee is sad. As a musician, he was far more talented than Elvis Presley. Everybody down in Memphis knows that. Elvis became a movie star because he was beautiful. Not that Elvis wasn’t talented, but Jerry Lee Lewis was incomprehensibly talented as a musician.

Elvis inspired my sideburns, but Little Richard inspired me for vocals.

At one point, we were across the street from the Sharon Tate house; at another, we lived in Elvis’s old Bel Air bachelor pad. It was where he first met the Beatles.

What happens with ‘Mad Men,’ it’s like an Elvis Costello album; I’ll watch it, and then I immediately have to watch it again. AMC will play it back-to-back. I have a tendency to yell at it when my wife’s not around because if she catches me yelling at ‘Mad Men,’ then it gets weird.

To be honest I was never much of an Elvis fan myself.

I have as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis.

The album is a definite departure. I haven’t written original material before, except for one song on my first album, but Elvis and I did six songs together on this one.

I came close to signing Elvis Presley. I offered $25,000 for his contract and they asked for $45,000 and I just didn’t have the other $20,000.

Elvis came along when I was 10. My father gave me a bass ukulele. I taught myself how to play from a book to play some chords, so I was laying down ‘Hound Dog’ and things like that when I was 10 years old in 1955. That’s the way I was. My ear was glued to the radio. I knew right then what I wanted to do.

Well, as an artist, I think that Elvis’s generosity to me he always talked very highly about me, he always spoke very highly about my work and singing and my writing.

I never felt more loved than when I was with Elvis.

Maybe Elvis was inhibited by inbred religious prohibitions or an Oedipal complex, or maybe he simply preferred the thrill of a denied release. Whatever put the brakes on the famous pelvis, it ground to a halt at a certain point, and that was it.

Actually, my mother turned me on to the blues. We had Lightnin’ Hopkins as well as Elvis Presley records.

My pop culture ended somewhere north of Elvis but not too far.

When I first met Elvis, we had so much in common and became fast friends.

I always tell my wife she’s married to the Puerto Rican Elvis.

I couldn’t sing without a guitar. I like the way it feels to sing and be holding a guitar, even if I’m not playing it that much. All my idols that I grew up liking always had a guitar on them, but they didn’t play it – Buddy Holly, John Lennon, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello. It’s like having a partner with you.

I was out on the golf course, a guy came riding out in a golf cart and said, Did you know that Elvis died? And I just said, Well, there you go. It was like I had kinda been expecting it.

He will go down as a legend along with Elvis and the Beatles and Michael Jackson. Bob Marley is right up there. He was a leader for reggae music – he really made it appeal to a world audience.

I don’t speak Punjabi. My dad runs a beauty salon and is an Elvis fan.

When I used to go to Elvis’s house was always a nightmare trying to get into the house because of so many fans outside the gate and he really couldn’t go anywhere without sneaking in or doing something because people just wanted to be around him and to be with him.

When Elvis was performing, you just tried to figure out a way to get there. I think he set all the records and anyone that has ever had the good fortune to see him, you know what it’s like to try to get in to see Elvis. It was impossible, practically.

My dad is a big Outlaw country guy – Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Waylon, Willie. He loves Elvis and turned me onto Elvis. He was always playing me stuff. He and I would sing and entertain the family. We’d have a little skit on Thanksgiving or whatever.

When I was in high school in the ’50s you were supposed to be an Elvis Presley, a James Dean, a Marlon Brando or a Kingston Trio type in a button-down shirt headed for the fraternities at Stanford or Cal.

Being Elvis Presley’s daughter is a whole lot of pressure. It’s been a constant burden in my life.

Never trust a man who doesn’t like Elvis.

If I ever got in the way of Kurt Browning or Elvis Stojko, and they got mad and yelled at me, I’d be, ‘Oh my God! I’m so sorry!’

I didn’t have a lot of communication with Elvis. You had to go through a barricade to get to Elvis. It was people hanging on every word, and I felt very uncomfortable a lot of times.

One of the reasons why when Elvis dies or the Son of Sam is captured ABC News’ ratings go up is because people who don’t normally watch news are watching then. The question is, do you want to attract people who don’t watch network news or fight over the people who do?

A formidable game of ‘Name That Influence’ could be based on the music of the seductive rock duo Girls: The band’s first single, ‘Hellhole Ratrace,’ would barely reach its opening words before screams of ‘Elvis Costello!’ and ‘Wreckless Eric!’ drown out the music.

I romanticize. I live with the ghosts of Elvis and Frank Sinatra. It seems so glamorous. They were American men who don’t exist anymore. But there are ugly things about them, too.

On Sirius, I can find anything I want. They have about four or five different metal channels, rock channels; there’s a whole Elvis channel.

At first, when we got engaged, I asked him if we could just go to Vegas and get married by Elvis, just because I didn’t want to deal with planning a wedding.

I feel like Elvis. Only alive.

Elvis Presley was the big bang. He was the most influential single figure in the history of American pop culture. He changed the way we looked, thought, dressed, held a guitar. He didn’t invent rock & roll, but he defined it in a way that everyone who followed him owes him a debt.

The only person that anybody’s ever said I resemble is a young Elvis. It used to happen a lot more when I was younger, and more when I don’t wear a hat.

Rock n’ roll sounded like music from another planet. The first time around, we had people like Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis – all them people.

People define themselves to some degree by the music that they listened to as teens. My mom had Elvis. Me, I had ‘The Who’ and later punk rock. Kids who came up in the ’80s had other songs and bands. It’s a way of placing ourselves culturally and temporally.

Elvis was just like a big old kid. It was like he never got past 19, I don’t think, in a lotta ways.

Of all the ’60s – there was Elvis, there was the Beatles, there was the British invasion, Jimmy Hendrix, and Woodstock – the No. 1 record was ‘The Twist.’

In Hollywood, famous singer Elvis Presley used to wear gold chains. I was a huge follower of Presley. I used to think, if I become successful someday, then I will build a different image of mine. By the grace of God, I could do it with gold.

My favorite artists have always been Elvis and The Beatles and they still are!

One of the few times I saw my mother cry was when Lennon died, and the other time was when Elvis died.

I can always remember that experience in Hawaii pleasantly on account of Elvis.

I loved rock and roll when that came in, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, all those great records. So I begged my mom and dad for a guitar, which eventually they did get me for Christmas, but it went out of tune very quickly, and it hurt my fingers.

Elvis may be the King of Rock and Roll, but I am the Queen.

Yeah, and I recently had my first Elvis moment. A gang of young girls was jumping all over me. It was kinda scary. And totally flattering.

The first rock stars were incredibly theatrical. Little Richard and Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley – they were theater artists.

The road has taken a lot of the great ones: Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Janis, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis.

My first guitar was a Gretsch 6120, and I just loved listening to artists like Elvis, Chuck Berry and Stray Cats.

Elvis was sincere, and he was – he was so loyal. And he was so homespun. He loved his mother, he loved America. You know, he loved his fellow man. He had a great humanitarian philanthropic sense.

Elected office holds more perks than Elvis’ nightstand.

I love the make-up trailer. It’s a great way to start the day, drinking coffee and singing along to Elvis with the make-up artists. They work wonders on a very sleepy face.

Elvis stole his sideburns from me.

Buddy Holly had something very different from the other great early rock n’ roll stars, whether it was Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Bo Diddley. He came across as so ordinary, as such a nerd. You know, he was a big guy, and he carried a gun. He was anything but a nerd.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we worship celebrity and how we have Elvis and Marilyn Monroe and Jesus all on the same playing field.

I think, at some point, I might have said it must be great to be as big as Elvis, but that wasn’t a realistic dream.

The thing is, I’ve always wanted to be a star. I’ve always wanted to be an Elvis Presley or a Tupac – like, a huge icon.

Elvis Presley’s Sun stuff – there’s an album out in England with just about all those sides on it – you know, the sound of that upright bass slapping away: that’s what I like to listen to. That and Richard Pryor, that is.

The best came from my martial arts teacher, who also taught Elvis. He said, ‘Your ego will get you killed.’

My husband was a pilot. He flew Elvis when Elvis first started making appearances around the country.

I don’t sing to people. I sing for them. I told that once to Elvis Presley. He bought it. After that Elvis sang not to but for the audience. A subtle difference.

I was an original Elvis fan. He was the voice of my generation. I was listening to him on the radio when he released his great Sun records with Scotty Moore on electric guitar and Bill Black on bass.

And when Elvis was unhappy, believe me, everyone was unhappy.

I guess I thought I was Elvis Presley but I’ll tell ya something. All Elvis did was stand on a stage and play a guitar. He never fell off on that pavement at no 80 mph.

The Best of Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Hailey and the Comets, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Frankie Laine all topped the charts in the ’50s. Load a playlist of rock n’ roll royalty. You’re spoilt for choice.

In 20 years I had sold more records for RCA than any artist except Elvis Presley.

I love singing some Johnny Cash, which is interesting because it’s in a guy’s key; I love singing Elvis Presley.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that writing ‘I Ain’t Living Long Like This’ was an exercise in combined musical influence, mostly that of Hank Williams, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan – artists no one has ever heard of.

I’d been to Memphis before, but we stayed out of Memphis early on in the late 70s for obvious reasons. People were very sensitive about Elvis Presley, and my stage name obviously would be provocative to some people in that area at that time.

Elvis said, Miss Minnie, do you think it would be out of order if I go up and speak to General Stewart? I’ve always been such a fan of his. So Elvis went up to speak to the Stewarts.

Had I been pushed like Colonel Parker pushed Elvis, had I been a white boy like Elvis, sure, it would have been different.

I think that one of Elvis’ charms was that he could sing almost any kind of music. I am sure that in his heart, which I don’t know what was there, but just from his singing I could feel that he was very partial to gospel music.

The artist that had the biggest impact on me was Michael Jackson. He was my Elvis and Beatles. When I was 15, I listened to a lot of Sinatra, but my jean jacket didn’t have, ‘I love Frank’ on it, it had, ‘I love AC/DC’, ‘Guns N Roses’, ‘Pearl Jam’. I thought Eddie Vedder was the second coming.

When I heard Elvis and his ‘Sun Sessions,’ I went mad for it. I was about thirteen.

I like visual images and there are certainly other bands that have strong visual images going all the way back to Elvis Presley, but it’s kind of like that’s never really been my bag. Probably because I’m too shy.

It was immaterial to me that Elvis didn’t write his own songs. Those were very different days, and he selected whatever suited him best from material supplied by publishing houses and teams of writers – all of whom were extremely conscious of his style of delivery.

Imagine a singer with the virtuosity of Joan Sutherland or Ella Fitzgerald, the public persona of Eleanor Roosevelt, and the audience of Elvis, and you have Umm Kulthum.

I just really want to make – to be cliche about it, I want to make pretty music. Like Roy Orbison or Elvis, man. Those guys made beautiful, tender music.

You don’t necessarily have to write a song to make it your own. After all, Elvis never wrote a song in his life.

My uncle was an Elvis impersonator – his name was Perry, and he went by ‘Elvis Perry’ – and my work as a wedding singer landed me a spot in his act.

A lot of the people I’d love to work with, like John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, aren’t alive, unfortunately.

We’d play the American bases and found all these wonderful records by Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Sam Cooke. Without American music, there would not have been a British Invasion.

I’m remembered as a model who dated a rock star or 10, among them Steven Tyler, Todd Rundgren, David Bowie, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, Jimmy Page, and Rod Stewart.

I did ‘Viva Las Vegas’ with Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret. By standing in for Ann-Margret for a week, I learned the feeling of being a star in a musical number.

In five years, I had done 13 films, which I think broke Elvis’s record.

There has been speculation through the years that Elvis has his eyes done or some other mystery procedure, but that mini facelift was the extent of his plastic surgery.

Michael’s the ultimate entertainer. After Michael Jackson, it’s Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Bruce Lee.

Elvis was rock’n’roll. He came from the poverty and the pain.

The British invasion was the most important event of my life. I was in New Jersey and the night I saw the Beatles changed everything. I had seen Elvis before and he had done nothing for me, but these guys were in a band.

The fact is Jerry Weintraub, the handsome, bearish movie producer, the man with the long career, who worked with Arthur Godfrey and Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra and George Clooney, is a great storyteller – he’s this as much as he’s anything else. He takes time telling stories, too.

Elvis Costello had a brand new bag. He was a musician, but he knew all about the attitude part of it.

There were screaming girls, I had to learn as a blind person how to run to a limousine otherwise they’d take my clothes off and stuff. I thought to myself ‘how could this happen?’ I mean I could see it, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, but Jose Feliciano? It was a mystery to me.

I was nuts about Elvis, like every girl in America.

See, heroes never die. John Wayne isn’t dead, Elvis isn’t dead. Otherwise you don’t have a hero. You can’t kill a hero. That’s why I never let him get older.

Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music – it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I’m really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis – he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn’t impress me.

I was lucky enough to first meet Elvis at his house in Bel Air and he used to invite different artists, singers and musicians, to come and jam with him at his house.

Elvis is symbolic of a lot of things, dreams coming true being one of them.

There wasn’t really a lot of difference from a Mississippi perspective between what Elvis did on ‘Mystery Train’ or ‘Milkcow Blues’ or what Bill Monroe was playing or what Flatt and Scruggs was playing; it was rock ‘n’ roll to me.

Elvis was a great guy. We’d just horse around together or go to see a movie. He drove me around Graceland in a golf cart. He was a fan of our music and was curious about how I sounded so black.

My dream collaboration would be Elvis.

I got so big in the Latin market, it was a bit like being Elvis Presley. The limousines, the screaming girls – stuff I wasn’t used to.

They were taking pictures and everything. When we got down off the plane, the minute Elvis made his appearance at the door of the plane, the screaming got even worse.

I’ve been with certain stars; some are caring and pay attention to their fans and to their fellow performers and some are too busy. Elvis never seemed too busy.

What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive?

I love Johnny Cash, and I respect Johnny Cash. He’s the biggest. He’s like an Elvis in this business, but no, he’s never been the rebel.

The Beatles in 1963 came to America and became international celebrities, but Bobby Fischer was one of the first, as Elvis was, more in terms of the message created around him.

The more parents hate the music, the more their children will like it. It had been true with Elvis, and it had been true with the Rolling Stones. ‘Straight Outta Compton’ was music that parents could loathe with a passion. I knew we had a massive hit.

Elvis’ early music has drama because as he sang he was escaping limits.

I think that Vegas is one of the wildest places I’ve ever been to. You can look to your left and there’s a drag queen getting married by Elvis, to the right there is some old bird sticking quarters into a slot machine for hours.

I did a string of about six or seven Elvis movies, all in a row. He made all of those movies in two years’ time. All of them bad. Don’t quote me.

I wasn’t the biggest hip-hop fan, because I had to listen to whatever my parents listened to, so growing up, it was a lot of Dolly Parton, Elvis, and Whitney Houston. When they finally put a TV in my room and I got to listen to MTV Jams I was like: ‘Here I am!’

I used to go down every year for the remembrance of Elvis’ birthday. Memphis State College invited me to sit in the auditorium and speak to the people for one of those Elvis days.

Elvis Costello’s song writing is so peerless and individualistic. It’s storytelling and it’s deeply intelligent and clever.

There was a chance for me to write one song for the section where Elvis sat in his black leather outfit and sang the old hits. At eight oclock the next morning I had written Memories.

What I like about Elvis is the same thing I like about James Brown, Michael Jackson, Prince. These guys, back in the day, there was no smoke and mirrors. It was just raw talent. They would step out onstage and command an audience. Talk about awesome.

I started out just as Elvis was going into the army, Jerry Lee Lewis married his 14-year-old cousin, and Little Richard became a priest.

There was a misconception about me when I started off because I had my hair greased up and I have some vague resemblance to the hillbilly gene pool that Elvis came from. People would say, ‘You want to be Elvis’ and I would say, ‘No’.

God’s the final judge for Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash too. That’s solely in the hands of God.

I met Elvis first in Las Vegas. I think I was appearing with Tom Jones and he came backstage to say hello to Tom or we went to his dressing room to say hello.

Although he appeared in some awful movies, Elvis could also be pretty damn good as an actor.

One night I saw Jerry Lee, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Elvis for a dollar, if you believe that, in an open-air concert. Presley, I got to meet and go into his house and so forth. My wife says I should quit tellin’ that story, ’cause they’ll know how old I am.

My house is a bit like a teenager’s bedroom. The kind of pictures you have hanging up on your wall say a lot about you. I’ve got ones of Evel Knievel, Elvis and Starsky and Hutch, signed by David Soul.

A lot has been written and said about why he was so great, but I think the best way to appreciate his greatness is just to go back and play some of the old records. Time has a way of being very unkind to old records, but Elvis’ keep getting better and better.

Damien Hirst is the Elvis of the English art world, its ayatollah, deliverer, and big-thinking entrepreneurial potty-mouthed prophet and front man. Hirst synthesizes punk, Pop Art, Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Bacon, and Catholicism.

Elvis and I continued to be friends, and I saw him once or twice a year. But he was a troubled person.

My dad sat me in front of the TV, and instead of putting on Nick Jr. or something, he put me in front of ‘Jailhouse Rock’ and all the Elvis movies.

My father is the reason I’m a wrestler today. He was trained by Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart, and competed under the names Billy the Kid and Elvis Wesley on the Florida Independent scene.

The last time I saw Elvis was when I played my second New Year’s Eve show for him in 1970.

Elvis was incredibly cooperative. He would try anything. He wasn’t a diva, no prima donna. When it came to work, he was a workhorse.

It’s pretty amazing to me that my first hit record was an Elvis Presley record.

If you look back to a picture of me when I was 12 years old, you will probably see me in a leather jacket trying to look like Elvis!

People don’t realize what they had till it’s gone. Like President Kennedy, there was no one like him, the Beatles, and my man Elvis Presley. I was the Elvis of boxing.

I still have an old painting the Colonel gave me. It was the first time the Colonel had been back to the Hilton since Elvis had passed away.

Elvis was, at least the times I was around him, Elvis was a practical joker. He was always, had some little mischievous something going.

Before, I was terrified on stage. I only play guitar during the acoustic songs. After a while, you can elicit certain responses from the crowd, like Elvis.

In the ’50s, listening to Elvis and others on the radio in Bombay – it didn’t feel alien. Noises made by a truck driver from Tupelo, Mississippi, seemed relevant to a middle-class kid growing up on the other side of the world. That has always fascinated me.

I look good, but I probably have the insides of Elvis.

With great artists like Elvis, sometimes the songs weren’t the greatest thing about him. When I tried to perform some of the songs, I noticed some of the tunes weren’t all that brilliant, but it was the performance that sold them.

Elvis’s voice was unique. Like so many others, he had natural, technical ability, but there was something in the humanity of his voice, and his delivery.

Most singers have their idols. I remember Elvis Presley when I was a kid. When I was about sixteen, I always said I wanted to do ‘Love Me Tender.’

When I was a kid, I loved Elvis, and Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. But I had no connection to Hollywood – and being a movie star was such a far-fetched idea, growing up in Hawaii.

I am playing Elvis Presley in ‘Hello Darling.’ The project is really exciting for me because I get to play my idol.

Every performer who ever performed in rock and roll or even close to it is lying if they tell you that they weren’t influenced in some way or another by Elvis Presley. He turned the world around.

I think, describing Elvis for me would be a very generous king. He was the king of rock and roll, will always be. He’s whats made it possible for everyone to be performers and to do the things they do now.

My mom was always playing Elvis around the house or ZZ Top, so there was always rock-n-roll and country being played.

As a person, he was wonderful. He really was a great person. He was full of life. He had a great sense of humor. Very talented, of course, but very caring to his parents. There was a very endearing quality about Elvis.

I think everybody’s got a little Elvis in them.

I remember hearing people like Joe Cocker, Fleetwood Mac, and Elvis. My parents were big fans of them, and they were the early seeds. My brother was more into Slipknot, and I still listen to them, too, but it wasn’t until I listened to Paolo Nutini that it really clicked.

Elvis Presley, you can’t define him in a couple of sentences, but he was a country boy and he was very respectful.

You look back at people like Elvis and The Beatles and still get their music because it’s timeless. That’s what I want.

Elvis is great and so is anybody who lasts like he does.

I looked at all the superstars. What is their different thing? Their hair. Beatles, Elvis, James Dean, James Brown, Marilyn Monroe. I wanted to be a star. I said, ‘I have to fix my hair.’