Ray Charles

Music’s been around a long time, and there’s going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it’s a big record, that’s the frosting on the cake, but music’s the main meal.

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

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.

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

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

I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.

Mom would kill me if I showed my navel.

Monterey, I remember, but I seem to remember the Fillmore West, that we played the week before Monterey. That was much more memorable for me. The first time in San Francisco. They were good gigs.

I think its important to keep an element of fear about yourself because it makes you appreciate the jobs.

[On her most dreadful crush] I used to drive, pretty pathetically, I’d just drive by their house all the time and they didn’t know who I was. I’d just drive by the house all the time. I once knocked on the window and I thought, “What am I doing? What am I going to say if they come to the door and don’t know who I am?”

It’s the 2016 election, and it’s 2015 right now. So I don’t care until we’re in the same year as the thing that I’m supposed to care about.

People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around – the music and the ideas.

A band’s only unique thing is its chemistry, especially if none of you are prodigious players or particularly handsome. The one thing you have is your uniqueness, so we hold on to that.

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.

There are stereotypes and it is quite amazing how often members of bands seem to follow those stereotypes. Singers are all vain. Guitarists are all vain but won’t admit it. Bass players are quiet people, and drummers are very exciting people to be with.

I love Scrubs. It’s the best day job in the world.

I’m a sucker for those sweeping love stories. When I read the script (The Notebook), I couldn’t stop crying! I just had such a powerful, instantaneous reaction – it was written so well.

I keep forgetting I’m speaking in an American accent sometimes. The dangerous thing is that you end up forgetting what your real accent is after a while! It’s really strange; I’ve never done a job in an American accent before.

No, I’ve never thought that I was gay. And that’s not something you think. It’s something you know.

This week, penny collector Gene Sukie went to the bank and cashed in 10,000 pounds of pennies he had collected over 34 years, which were worth over 14,000 dollars. And, of course, I was in line behind him.

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