Ray Charles

What is a soul? It’s like electricity – we don’t really know what it is, but it’s a force that can light a room.

My music had roots which I’d dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.

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.

There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we’re here to explore new possibilities.

I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t been able to hear.

Is there a meaning to music? Yes. Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? No.

I always play what I feel. I always feel like me, but I’m a different me every day. I get ideas from everything. A big color, the sound of water and wind, or a flash of something cool. Playing is like life. Either you feel it or you don’t.

I just fell in love with the integrity of the music and that was it.

When you are so strongly drawn to music, you can’t ‘not’ be a musician.

Most jazz players work out their solos, at least to the extent that they have a very specific vocabulary.

I’ve never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.

You don’t know what you like, you like what you know. In order to know what you like, you have to know everything.

Dizzy used to tell me I’m playing too hard. He’d say to not give everything. Miles told me that too.

You gotta mean it and you gotta treat it gentle.

As long as there are people trying to play music in a sincere way, there will be Jazz.

Music can’t save the world, but can make one a little calmer.

In Jazz, improvisation isn’t a matter of just making any ol’ thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There’s no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.

Jazz has the ability to absorb and transform influences from diverse musical styles.

There’s two things you can’t live without. Water and music.

The whites come to applaud a Negro performer just like the colored do. When you’ve got the respect of white and colored, you can ease a lot of things.