Alicia Keys

[on Serena Williams] You are THE epitome of grace and prowess!!! You are an inspiration to all of us. Your purpose to be a leader and a light is a gift to the world!! We love you and thank you for sharing your greatness and spirit!

First I was working on classical music that didn’t move me at all. I hated it. So I decided to discover the kinds of classical music that did move me—like Chopin, Satie, Beethoven, and certain Mozart songs. Mozart would play a counterpart with his left hand while using his right to mock it. It was blue, dark, shadowy and it made me feel something. That’s when I realized music was inside me.

It’s my nature to downplay.

Sometimes, I want some damn makeup, and I’m going to wear it! Guess what — if I want to wear red lipstick and put eyelashes on, I can do whatever I f**king want. I am the creator of my own destiny,

What if… everything you are going through is preparing you for what you asked for?

The rain can’t stop the vibes that are going to be created TODAY!!!

What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you come full upon, all the family at dinner. You seek it like a dream, and as soon as you find it, you become its prey.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

If it be an evil to judge rashly or untruly any single man, how much a greater sin it is to condemn a whole people.

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute.

Important encounters are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.

Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts … good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt. They’re not painful. That’s not just with somebody you want to marry, but it’s with the friends that you choose. It’s with the people you surround yourselves with.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis.

The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred on me. However, few escape that distinction.

The more I see of the moneyed classes, the more I understand the guillotine.

Some will always be above others. Destroy the inequality today, and it will appear again tomorrow.

We had the sky up there, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss whether they was made or just happened.

We must train hard. It’s not about denying a weakness may exist but about denying its right to persist.

All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.