Ray Charles

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.

I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.

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.

Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.

Music is my life, professionally, for nearly 60 years. To be recognized by the academy is still the highest honor.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

I was relentless, even in the face of total lack of encouragement, because much more often than you’d think, sheer persistence is the difference between success and failure.

Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Wally Amos is the classic example of a man who gets up again and again.

Do it, and then you will feel motivated to do it.

Your understanding of what you read and hear is, to a very large degree, determined by your vocabulary, so improve your vocabulary daily.

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

I’d be foolish not to take some of these opportunities that are coming my way.

And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.

I need to be surrounded by people as passionate and as dedicated as I am.