The first professional training I received of any kind was when I was 14 years old and we were in Kansas City, Missouri. I attended the Kansas City Art Institute for one summer.
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.
There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
Students today are a pretty solemn lot. One of the really notable achievements of the twentieth century has been to make the young old before their time.
