Brian McKnight

I am just like all the jerks and idiots you know. I am just a guy that watches sports all day.

I’ve worked with jazz artists, country artists, classical artists, pop artists. I never wanted there to be categories, because when I was a kid there weren’t.

I keep these songs in my head until I get behind the microphone. I never spend more than 30 or 40 minutes singing the vocal or it will sound mechanical. There are always mistakes, but it’s about feeling more than being perfect.

I tend to lean on the side of pessimism and I wish I could be more optimistic. I wish I could be better at taking things for what they are – not analyzing them – but just going about my life.

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

I didn’t think my career would last this long, and it’s still going.

Relax, stop overdoing it, and just breathe for a second.

Mean girls are always going to exist, and you can’t fight them. Don’t lose yourself in going along with them just to hide, because you won’t feel good about that either. But there are people like you out there, trust me. When I was in school, I felt like I was the only one, and I got to college, and a whole new world opened up for me, and I’ve never, ever felt that way again. I did theater outside of school, and I think that was my salvation as well. I found people that had the same interests and respected each other. It exists, and keep trying to find it, because it’s worth it not to succomb.

[on Sarah Palin returning to Fox News] First tonight, I and the rest of America woke up this morning in the worst way imaginable.

I’ve had some pretty good experiences on everything, even if the film doesn’t always work.

I’m keeping the pixie. I hope I inspire people… it’s really cool to have short hair.

You shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house and if you got a glass jaw, you should watch yo mouth: cause I’ll break yo face.

Nudity for fictional characters is as normal and mundane as eating breakfast. What bothers me is our culture’s obsession with nudity. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. I think this overemphasis with nudity makes actors nervous. There’s the worry about seeing one’s body dissected, misrepresented, played and replayed on YouTube.

If I have to listen to one more grey faced man with a $2 hair cut explain to me what rape is, I’m going to lose my mind.

I’m the type to swallow my blood ‘fore I swallow my pride.

They (Barnes Theatre Club) were a very good group, and for some reason when I finished the backstage thing, I just decided to that I should try to act. So I auditioned for Guys and Dolls and got a little tiny part as some Cuban dancer or something and then in the next play I got the lead part, and then I got my agent. So I owe everything to that little club.

I like listening to good music – and I can’t stop playing my album.

You don’t even realize how much you need Internet, but it really stops you from doing a lot.

Show No Love , Cus Love Can Get U killed

When I was producing on my own, I was doing it in order to – in a very patriarchal entertainment industry, let alone planet – very much hell-bent on trying to prove to myself, if nothing else, that I could do it as a woman.

I’m starting to know how the world works a bit, and I’m learning more and more that the only thing that matters is what happens between ‘action’ and ‘cut’. I’m allowing myself to be a bit more selfish, for want of a better word, just that it’s OK to focus and that I don’t have to be nice to everybody.