Ray Charles

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.

Music to me is like breathing. I don’t get tired of breathing, I don’t get tired of music.

There’s nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, If you believe in Me, you ain’t going to have no troubles.

I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.

Music is my life, professionally, for nearly 60 years. To be recognized by the academy is still the highest honor.

I’m fascinated with the electronic devices that we can mess around with.

I try to practice with my life.

Inspiration grows into full-scale creation through persistence and imagination.

I bought my first electric guitar when I moved to Memphis; a Gibson with a DeArmond pickup which I used with a small Gibson amplifier.

Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.

Quiet is the absence of sound. Silence is the presence of silence.

Seemed to me that drumming was the best way to get close to God.

I didn’t get my music together until I was 40.

Jazz is the big brother of Revolution. Revolution follows it around.

Words are the children of reason and therefore can’t translate the feeling of Jazz because they’re not part of it.

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

I’d like to feel that whatever I play is a result of whatever I’ve heard.

I have younger friends who don’t work and they aren’t doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.

I listen to all kinds of songs. There’s something to be learned from every type of music and from the one making it, whether it’s pop or jazz or hip-hop.

I’m not like a legend that – so I’m sort of in the middle in this sort of gray area where, you know, I’m creating music, and I’m not saying there isn’t an audience, because there is; because all of those people go out and spend $80 to $150 on a concert ticket.