“I'd always been quite quiet growing up, and singing was a way of having a voice.”

“I was blessed with a good voice but not a good life. We didn't have a radio at home, but when I'd hear Mohammad Rafi's voice emit from a neighbour's radio, I'd be mesmerised. I'd sing for 25 paise at small village fairs.”

“I've never minded being disciplined. I'd always rather have a quiet evening in than go to a wild party. Discipline for me has always been the foundation which leaves me free to fly.”

“I'd like to be the sort of friend that you have
been to me;
I'd like to be the help that you've been always
glad to be;
I'd like to mean as much to you each minute
of the day
as you have meant, old friend of mine, to me
along the way.”

“You have a voice, which has been perhaps been quiescent on matters economic because you have in the past deferred to the authority of the economist. There is no reason to remain quiet.”

“I'd never heard anything like it before. It was like banshee music. This absolutely otherworldly voice, singing about a book, and as a bookish kid, I was always fascinated by anything, any music that seems to be about or inspired by books.”

“Of course, I had to own that he was right; I didn't feel much regret for what I'd done. Still, to my mind, he overdid it, and I'd have liked to have a chance of explaining to him, in a quite friendly, almost affectionate way, that I have never been able to really regret anything in all my life. I've always been far too much absorbed in the present moment, or the immediate future, to think back.”

“If you really want to know, I'd rather not have been born at all. I find life very tiring. The thing's done now, of course, and I can’t alter it. But there will always be this regret at the back of my mind, I shall never quite be able to get rid of it, and it will spoil everything. The thing to do now is to grow old quickly, to eat up the years as fast as possible, looking neither right nor left.”

“There was music all about us, we were growing quite forgetful
We were only singing seamen from the dirt of Londontown.”

“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, «I will try again tomorrow». ”