When my career took off it surprised me, I was only 22. To have that much success so fast, I just wasn't prepared.

No one can pigeon-hole me because I play everything, and I did that on purpose.

I don't think kneeling during the anthem is such a bad thing.

From 1969 to 1973, I was never played on radio stations.

When I was 15, I became an avid fan of Andres Segovia. He brought so much respectability to the guitar.

I'm not like other guitar players. In fact, I'm not even like most acoustic players because I use the nylon-string acoustic. I do play steel-string and the electric guitar, too, because I love rock 'n' roll and guitarists like Jimi Hendrix. But my bread and butter has always been the nylon-string.

People are really surprised by the fact that I keep in touch with the latest trends rather than retreating to the distant past.

I've been a fan of Elvis since I was 11, so for me, it was a real thrill to make an album of all my favorite Elvis songs.

I don't think Hank Greenberg thought of himself as the first Jewish baseball player - he was a baseball player who happened to be Jewish. I'm an artist who happens to be Latin.

The accordion was the first instrument I played, when I was 7 years old.

I went through the immigration thing. But when I got to New York it wasn't so tough for me. I went to school. I went to P.S. 57, then I went to the Lighthouse for the Blind on 59th St. I guess being blind is a great leveler.

Now everybody has been doing the national anthem in their own style, but in 1968 I was the one that took the heat. It cut my career for quite a while.

I'm very proud being Puerto Rican. I'm American. That is what America is made of - people from different lands.

Pioneers will always get the stones, when everyone later gets the accolades.

One thing about computers and iPhones is they're making people mentally lazy.

I'm kind of iffy on the Latin Grammys because I think we fought so hard, for example, to get the American side of the Grammys to open categories for us... But I support the Latin Grammys in the sense I'm glad that we have them.

The fact I'm blind has been a great help to my career. If I'd been sighted I'd have played baseball and got into trouble like all other kids on my block.

In 1970, my label decided I should do a Christmas album and I put a bunch of tunes together. We couldn't decide what to call it and so I said 'Why not just say Merry Christmas in Spanish? Feliz Navidad.' They said, 'That's cool, Jose, but we need a title song.' So I just sat down and started to play.

I sang the National Anthem with soul.

I always tell my wife she's married to the Puerto Rican Elvis.

I'm in a museum. I'm a relic.

I just do my thing, what I feel.

God did not want me to be a blind beggar on the street, alone and bitter. He gave me music, first to be my companion and then to be my salvation.

I just happened to be Latino, and like any artist, I was trying to forge a career. If I opened doors for others, that's great, but nobody starts out with those aspirations.