Brian McKnight

I’m creating music – it doesn’t matter if anyone else likes it.

When it’s your chance to step up to the plate, just hit it out of the park, and everybody will forget about everything that came before.

I was probably six years old when I first sang before an audience.

You can’t listen to what people who aren’t musical have to say. When Anytime was released, I had bad reviews, and at first I was hurt. Your songs are like your children. You don’t want to hear, ‘Your kid is ugly.’ But I knew the record was good and it would sell.

I think the idea of a love song has changed. Most of the love songs we all loved as kids would be classified as funeral dirges now, you know, really super slow. I think nowadays the ballad has changed. It can have some up-tempo, some drums, some other things. ‘Forever’ would still be considered a ballad, I guess, but the tempo is probably more of a mid-tempo. The content is love song. I don’t know how to write anything else.

I went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that’s what I got back to.

I’d rather be called King than other things I’ve been called.

People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around – the music and the ideas.

I can be sent a pop song, a reggae song, a rap song or an RandB song, and people know that Nicki Minaj is gonna deliver something special every time

When it’s your chance to step up to the plate, just hit it out of the park, and everybody will forget about everything that came before.

[on her mom] She always knows what to do to cheer me up. Whenever I feel down, my mom will take me shopping or out to lunch. she’s 100% there for me, and always has been. My family keeps me going no metter what.

To be on this set today, I feel very blessed for the second chance and for the opportunity, my record company believing in me and everybody here just showing me so much love and support.

I quit driving, I’m not retired.

The weird thing is, when Darrell Hammond or Will Ferrell or Dana Carvey did an impersonation of a president, no one assumed it was personal, but because Sarah Palin and I are both women and people think women are meaner to each other, everyone assumed it was personal.

I don’t try to just be a blues singer – I try to be an entertainer. That has kept me going.

There’s probably not a crew chief out there who hasn’t tried something that seemed like a good idea.

The day before the film (Harry Potter) was released, I was just sitting in Leicester Square, happily being ignored by everyone. Then suddenly strangers are screaming your name. Amazing.

I’m not a mean person, but I have a capacity for it. I have the biting comment formed somewhere in the back of my head – like it’s in captivity. Sometimes people expect that I’m going to be tough. It’s not a bad situation. People treat you better. People are on time.

[On drum machines] Fantastic to write with. They have their place, they’re terribly useful to the musician, but they’re just another tool. They never will replace a good drummer. A lot of the bands that use them, I call them typewriter bands because basically they program the sample sounds with no real dynamics, and that dynamics is very important. And the records come out sounding very flat and very 2-dimensional whereas something with real dynamics and a good drummer can add another dimension – depth – to the band and that’s why bands that play together when they’re actually making the record will always sound better.

I’m just chatty. But I do express my opinion.

[To Jimmy Webb] You’re really interested in a career? Wow, I just thought you were some guy who hung out in Las Vegas with Connie Stevens.