Brian McKnight

I’m not thinking about what needs to be on the radio. I’m not thinking about anything other than – I’m just going to let this music come out of me and not have any sort of preconceived notion of what I should do. I’m just going to do it.

Every little kid that steps on the court or the field has aspirations to go pro. I think being a pro basketball player is the best job. The thing I had to realize was that I can’t do every dream that I have.

There’s no substitute to being successful on an actual chart.

It’s just exciting to be part of something that is brand-new.

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 started as a writer and when I sent my demos out everyone wanted to know who was singing and if that person wanted a record deal.

Lately, I’m spending more and more time working with non-rock musicians and leaving the mainstream – almost dissolving into another world, musically.

I am constantly amazed by Tina Fey. And I am Tina Fey.

To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.

It’s crazy because, you know, my parents always want me to watch old films to make me realize how amazing some of the older actors are. And I was obsessed as soon as I watched ‘Stand by Me.

A kiss with anyone, on or off camera, can be intimidating. Ive been kissing for nearly two decades now, and I’m always convinced I’m not doing it right.

And now that you have a child you have to clean up your act, ’cause you can’t drink anymore. You can’t come home drunk and go, ‘Hey, here’s a little switch: Daddy’s gonna throw up on you!’

Possibly the whole creative whirlwind of any musician’s life is based on garnering and developing and absorbing more and more experience.

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

The trouble is now, with rock’n’roll and stuff, it gets so big that it loses what once upon a time was a magnificent thing, where it was special and quite elusive and occasionally a little sinister and it had its own world nobody could get in.

I don’t display emotions. I have every feeling that everyone else has but I’ve developed ways to suppress them. Anger is one of my most comfortable feelings.

I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion. It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society…unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool.

I went up to his [Hank Jones’] house and there were four guys there: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. Not a bad place to be. Scared shitless, but a nice place to be on my second day in New York.

We had to do this scene looking like heroes diving into the lake. they had a stand-in doing perfect dives on the first take. Then Stan, Clemence, And I tried, but none of us could dive in right, and we all looked really stupid.

No, I was two years older than the other guys. I was a war baby. My family were a lot poorer than they were. I’d had to fight too hard for anything I had in my life and to smash things up for me.

I’m very outspoken. I will ask a silly question, but I really am deadly serious. I want to know the answer.