Ray Charles

I do Jazz, Blues, Country and so forth. I do them all like a good utility man.

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.

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

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

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

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

God is the same everywhere.

Heaven and earth and I are of the same root, The ten-thousand things and I are of one substance.

Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine. – Shunryu Suzuki

Great morning!! Dear God, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for EVERYTHING! Especially my healthy baby girl!

If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first — rock and roll or Christianity.

To follow the path, look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master.

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

Zen mind is not Zen mind. Throwing away Zen mind is correct Zen mind.

To be calm is the highest achievement of the self.

I have a habit of running from the things I’ve prayed for and then asking God to send them again.

When you get there, there isn’t any there there.

All beings are by nature Buddha, as ice by nature is water. Apart from water there is no ice; apart from beings, no Buddha.