Dion DiMucci

I show rock and rollers how to grow old gracefully.

If you don't have God in your life, you have to fill up on something. And you usually reach for the four great substitutes, the classical addictions: wealth, pleasure, power, and honor. So you try to fill yourself up.

With Del Shannon - and I've got to tell you this - there's nobody probably on the face of the earth that I identified more with musically. We used to sit and sing George Jones and Hank Williams tunes.

If you make excuses, you're going to believe in a lie. And I don't believe in that lie that you can't make it, that somebody is trying to hold you back.

It was a lot of fun in the back of that bus with Ritchie Valens, Buddy and The Big Bopper sharing each other's songs.

I was a weird kid. I loved music, and I loved reading about God.

I don't believe in being a victim. I think with information and motivation, you can do anything.

I thought you had to be humble to become a saint, but a priest told me it takes all kinds to make it to heaven.

There were a lot of bad relationships that got very convoluted up at Columbia with me, what they expected from me.

I want to rock till I drop. I love rock and roll music. It keeps you young.

I tell you, gospel music is very uplifting. It's great. It's just a lot of fun to write, and it's wonderful for the heart, soul, mind, and spirit. It's just great.

Songs, to me, have always been kind of like a diary, you know - and, say, when I did 'Teenager In Love,' maybe I was 16.