All artists have runners, people that tell them what to do, business managers, lawyers, these - if they get the right ones, they're lucky, and if they get the wrong ones, they're unlucky.

I didn't want to be a big record mogul and all that stuff. I just wanted to write songs and make people laugh.

The whole purpose of writing a book is to be understood - if other people write about you, they try to guess why you did things, or they hear things from other people.

Today's business climate is not for me.

I'm a songwriter, that's what I love.

Motown was about music for all people – white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.

It's like losing a son because I loved Michael and Michael loved me. But you know, as when people grow up and they make their own decisions and they move forward, there's a distance, and I think that Michael in some cases might have gone too far with some of the things he was doing.

There aren’t enough people who care about the future. They are too busy worrying about today and what they can grab now

I have this ability to find this hidden talent in people that sometimes even they didn't know they had.