Alicia Keys

In the 1990s, with Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, those really big female artists were very glamorous, it was all about the glamour at that time. And so there was a big switch, the desire to be more who you were, not so beholden to this whole standard of beauty. It was a liberation. You see Mary J Blige – she did the same, wearing the combat boots.

I constantly ask myself if what I’m doing is for me or somebody else. It’s tripping me out!

I want to keep redefining my work and trying new things. I want my music to be able to fit into any category. I want it to float wherever my heart goes. My music is heart music; giving it any other description is dangerous.

I feel like….Music is the – it’s the answer. It’s the reason.

Everything I do stems from something personal, not just because it will look good on paper or be a tax write-off.

We all have our challenges, issues, things that we’re working through and insecurity is there because nobody is perfect no matter who you are. It’s that imperfection that makes you so dope.

Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope.

Every wall is a door.

The secret of being a bore… is to tell everything.

How much of human life is lost in waiting.

Switzerland is simply a large, lumpy, solid rock with a thin skin of grass stretched over it.

Whatever you have spend less.

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

A man finds room in the few square inches of the face for the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his history, and his wants.

I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher.

Of all the anti-social vested interests the worst is the vested interest in ill-health.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved, and the need to judge. Those are the three things the ego is doing all the time. It’s very important to be aware of them every time they come up.