1.
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
2.
If you smile through your fear and sorrow, smile and maybe tomorrow you'll see the sun come shining through for you.
Nat King Cole
3.
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
4.
People don't slip. Time catches up with them.
Nat King Cole
5.
Unforgettable in every way, and forever more, that's how you'll stay.
Nat King Cole
6.
I'm an interpreter of stories. When I perform it's like sitting down at my piano and telling fairy stories.
Nat King Cole
7.
The people who know nothing about music are the ones always talking about it.
Nat King Cole
8.
Smile and maybe tomorrow you'll see that life is still worth while if you just smile
Nat King Cole
9.
I may be helping to bring harmony between people through my music.
Nat King Cole
10.
I felt something impossible for me to explain in words. Then, when they took her away, it hit me. I got scared all over again and began to feel giddy. Then it came to me... I was a father.
Nat King Cole
11.
I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.
Nat King Cole
12.
The Supreme Court is having a hard time integrating schools. What chance do I have to integrate audiences?
Nat King Cole
13.
I'm not playing for other musicians. We're trying to reach the guy who works all day and wants to spend a buck at night. We'll keep him happy.
Nat King Cole
14.
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
15.
When I first organized the King Cole Trio back in 1937, we were strictly what you would call an instrumental group. To break the monotony, I would sing a few songs here and there between the playing. I sang things I had known over the years. I wasn't trying to give it any special treatment, just singing. I noticed thereafter people started requesting more singing, and it was just one of those things.
Nat King Cole
16.
It's not the people in the South who create racial problems - it's the people who are governing.
Nat King Cole
17.
I got the message. All of us get the message, sooner or later. If you get it before it's too late or before you're too old, you'll pull through all right.
Nat King Cole
18.
I ... started out to become a jazz pianist; in the meantime I started singing and I sang the way I felt and that's just the way it came out.
Nat King Cole
19.
I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers.
Nat King Cole
20.
Only time, education and plenty of good schooling will make anti-segregation work.
Nat King Cole
21.
Although it's been said many times, many ways...Merry Christmas to you!
Nat King Cole
22.
If you ever plan to motor west, travel my way, take the highway that is best. Get your kicks, on Route Sixty-six.
Nat King Cole
23.
I'm in the music business for one purpose - to make money.
Nat King Cole
24.
Critics don't buy records. They get 'em free.
Nat King Cole
25.
Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark.
Nat King Cole
26.
You've got to change with the public's taste.
Nat King Cole
27.
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
28.
I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.
Nat King Cole
29.
There's just one thing I can't figure out. My income tax!
Nat King Cole
30.
Get me well so I can get on television and tell people to stop smoking.
Nat King Cole
31.
The only sport I'm not interested in is horse racing. That's because I don't know the horses personally.
Nat King Cole
32.
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
33.
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
34.
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
35.
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
36.
Primarily I'm a meat man, although once in a while I toy with a few vegetables.
Nat King Cole
37.
If I could read it, I could play it.
Nat King Cole
38.
I'm a businessman. I work for business people. The kind of thing they say is: Now we've sold a lot of records, let's sell some more.
Nat King Cole