[When asked who he sounded like] "I don't sound like nobody."

[when asked what kind of music he sings] "I sing all kinds."

"I don't like being called Elvis The Pelvis. That's gotta be one of the most childish expressions I've ever heard coming from an adult."

"Some people tap their feet, some people snap their fingers, and some people sway back and forth. I just sorta do 'em all together, I guess."

[his acceptance speech from the 1970 Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Nation Awards] "When I was a child, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dreamer. I read comic books, and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies, and I was the hero in the movie. So every dream I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times . . . I learned very early in life that 'Without a song, the day would never end; without a song, a man ain't got a friend; without a song, the road would never bend - without a song.' So I keep singing a song. Goodnight. Thank you."

"There's been a big change in the music field in the last 10 or 12 years. I think everything has improved - the sounds have improved, the musicians have improved, the engineers have definitely improved. I like a lot of the new groups, y'know, The Beatles and The Byrds and the . . . whoever, but I really like a lot of the new music, but a lot of it is basically, our music is basically, rock 'n roll music is basically gospel or rhythm and blues. People have been adding to it, adding instruments to it, experimenting with it."

[I just fell into it really. My daddy and I were laughing about it the other day. He looked at me and said, 'What happened, El? The last thing I remember is I was working in a can factory and you were driving a truck'. We all feel the same way about it. Still it just caught us up."

[on performing] "It's like a surge of electricity going through you. It's almost like making love, but it's even stronger than that . . . sometimes I think my heart is going to explode."

"My daddy had seen a lot of people who played guitars and stuff and didn't work, so he said, 'You should make up your mind either about being an electrician or playing a guitar, and I never saw a guitar player that was worth a damn.' "

"The image is one thing and the human being is another, it's very hard to live up to an image."

"A live concert to me is exciting because of all the electricity that is generated in the crowd and on stage. It's my favorite part of the business - live concerts."

"I've never gotten over what they call stage fright. I go through it every show. I'm pretty concerned, I'm pretty much thinking about the show. I never get completely comfortable with it, and I don't let the people around me get comfortable with it, in that I remind them that it's a new crowd out there, it's a new audience, and they haven't seen us before. So it's got to be like the first time we go on."

[at a 1972 press conference in Madison Square Garden] "Man, I was tame compared to what they do now, are you kidding? All that I ever did was just jiggle."

"I want to entertain people. That's my whole life. To my last breath."

"The police filmed a show one time in Florida because of the P.G.A, Y.M.C.A., or somebody. They thought that I was...something. They said, 'Man, he's got to be crazy'. So they, the police, came out and filmed the show. I couldn't move. I had to stand still. The only thing I could move was my little finger like that. 'You ain't nothing but a hound dog crying all the time', y'know, for the whole show".

"Take care of the fans and they will sure as hell take care of you."

"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."

"I wiggle my shoulders, I shake my legs, I walk up and down the stage, I hop around on one foot. But I never bump and grind. Why, that's vulgar. I'd never do anything vulgar before an audience. My mother would never allow it."

"Roy Orbison is the greatest singer in the world."

[1956] "The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I'm doin' now, man, for more years than I know. They played it like that in their shanties and in their juke joints and nobody paid it no mind 'til I goosed it up. I got it from them. Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now and I said if I ever got to a place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I'd be a music man like nobody ever saw."

I get tired of playing a guy who gets into a fight, then starts singing to the guy he's just beat up."

"I am not the King. Jesus Christ is the King. I'm just an entertainer."

"Since I was two years old, all I knew was gospel music. That music became such a part of my life it was as natural as dancing. A way to escape from my problems, an my way of release."

[On Blue Hawaii (1961)] "In the movie we did a song called the 'Hawaiian Wedding Song'. And it was so real that it took me ten years before I realized I wasn't married to the chick."