Dick Clark Quotes

I have accomplished my childhood dream: to be in show business. Everybody should be so lucky to have their dreams come true. I’ve been truly blessed.

In Presley’s time, you didn’t dare not to be a fan of his, because you were part of a club. Now you can say I prefer Billy Joel or Tina Turner or someone else. It’s all fractionalized.

I don’t make culture. I sell it.

It’s real good to be back with you again this year.

I don’t set trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them.

I played records, the kids danced, and America watched.

I’m always distressed by the supposedly bright people who don’t know what they are.

Humor is always based on a modicum of truth. Have you ever heard a joke about a father-in-law?

I could never turn to a guy and a girl and ask, ‘Are you going steady?’ That was absolutely a no-no – it was the Eisenhower period, and no parent wanted their kid going steady, so it wasn’t a thing that you could endorse as proper behavior on the air.

Success is finding something you love to do, getting paid to do it and finding someone to share it with.

Now that we’ve got computers, you can pump up anything that anybody ever uttered.

I love what I do. I love the invigoration of doing things I haven’t done before.

The music of your youth stays with you throughout your life.

Age ain’t got nothing to do with how old you are.

If you want to stay young-looking, pick your parents very carefully.

First job I had, I was 17 years old. I was primarily the mail room boy at the radio station. An FM station. And in those days, nobody listened to FM.

The problem is when you try to impose today’s standards on people living back then. It’s the politically correct thing to do, but it was a different era, a different country then.

I had made a great deal of money, and I was proud of it. I was a capitalist.

I’m a survivor in a business that constantly rejects you.

Two-thirds of people with diabetes don’t realize the seriousness that it can cause their hearts. They don’t realize they can have a stroke, drop dead of a heart attack. So you’ve got to get this thing under control.

Well, I’m using a cane, so what? So what if they shot me sitting in a wheelchair? That’s life!

It can be embarrassing. People come up to me and say, ‘I love your show,’ and I have no idea which one they’re talking about.

My father said to me at one time, ‘If you are still a disc jockey by the time you are 30, you better find another line of work.’ Little does he realize, I am in my 70s, and I still do seven or eight hours of radio every day – or every week.

The Prince interview was a failure. Huge, but most memorable ’cause he didn’t say anything.

I was roundly criticized for being in and around rock & roll music at its inception. It was the devil’s music: it would make your teeth fall out and your hair turn blue, whatever the hell. You get through that.