Nat King Cole Quotes
"Get me well so I can get on television and tell people to stop smoking."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: People, Smoking, Television)
"I'm an interpreter of stories. When I perform it's like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories."
- Nat King Cole
"For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Death, People, Musicians, Nothing, Play, Years)
"I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: American, Rights)
"I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: African, American, Artist, Famous, Jazz)
"I can't bear to see myself even in movies. The feeling is complex. I can't stand the sight of myself."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Movies, Feeling, Sight)
"I make no claim to being a business genius. You can make so much money in this business that it loses its value."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Business, Money, Genius, Being, Value)
"I may be helping to bring harmony between people through my music."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Music, People, Harmony, May)
"I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Help, Pretty, Wonder)
"I was a guinea pig for some hoodlums who thought they could hurt me and frighten me and keep other Negro entertainers from the South."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Thought, Hurt)
"I'm a musician at heart, I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Heart, Public)
"I'm in the music business for one purpose - to make money."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Business, Money, Music, Purpose)
"I'm proud of our court. It knocks back a lot of the propaganda the Communists put out about the way America treats her Negroes."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: America, Court, Propaganda)
"If I could read it, I could play it."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Play)
"The Supreme Court is having a hard time integrating schools. What chance do I have to integrate audiences?"
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Time, Audiences, Chance, Court, Schools)
"Critics don't buy records. They get 'em free."
- Nat King Cole
"It's not the people in the South who create racial problems - it's the people who are governing."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: People, Problems)
"The whites come to applaud a Negro performer just like the colored do. When you've got the respect of white and colored, you can ease a lot of things."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Respect)
"You've got to change with the public's taste."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Change, Public, Taste)
"The sheriff is at the cash register, and if I don't get a hit soon, I don't know what I'll do."
- Nat King Cole
"The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Music, People, Nothing, Talking)
"The only sport I'm not interested in is horse racing. That's because I don't know the horses personally."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Horses, Racing)
"The only prejudice I've found anywhere in TV is in some advertising agencies, and there isn't so much prejudice as just fear."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Fear, Advertising, Prejudice)
"Primarily I'm a meat man, although once in a while I toy with a few vegetables."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Man)
"People don't slip. Time catches up with them."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Time, People)
"Only time, education and plenty of good schooling will make anti-segregation work."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Education, Work, Time, Will)
"Music is emotional, and you may catch a musician in a very unemotional mood or you may not be in the same frame of mind as the musician. So a critic will often say a musician is slipping."
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Music, May, Mind, Will)
"There's just one thing I can't figure out. My income tax!"
- Nat King Cole
(Related: Income)