Top 85 Ray Charles Quotes
#1. 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.
Ray Charles
#2. To me, music is entertainment - what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal.
Ray Charles
#3. Affluence separates people. Poverty knits 'em together. You got some sugar and I don't; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour; well, I'll give you some of mine.
Ray Charles
#4. I did it to myself. It wasn't society ... it wasn't a pusher, it wasn't being blind or being black or being poor. It was all my doing.
Ray Charles
#5. Live each day like it's your last, 'cause one day you gonna be right
Ray Charles
#6. Music to me is just like breathing. I have to have it. It's part of me.
Ray Charles
#7. There's such a thing as too much happiness and sadness. What I'm after is contentment.
Ray Charles
#8. Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.
Ray Charles
#9. When I'm having a rehearsal and there are new guys who come in to try out for the job, I always let my conductor rehearse them. Because I don't want the guy to get bent out of shape, because I walk in.
Ray Charles
#10. Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.
Ray Charles
#11. Just like you can buy grades of silk, you can buy grades of justice.
Ray Charles
#12. Nowadays they say you need a special chip to put in the TV so kids can't watch this and that. In my day, we didn't need a chip. My mom was the chip. End of story.
Ray Charles
#13. I don't sing a song unless I feel it. The song don't tug at my heart, I pass on it. I have to believe in what I'm doing.
Ray Charles
#14. My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.
Ray Charles
#15. Now Listen You know I work so hard, all day long Everything I try to do, Seem to always turn out wrong That's why I wanna stop by on my way home and say Let's go get stoned
Ray Charles
#16. Sometimes my dreams are so deep that I dream that I'm dreaming.
Ray Charles
#17. Rhythm and blues used to be called race music ... This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it.
Ray Charles
#18. There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we're here to explore new possibilities.
Ray Charles
#19. I think that most great artists who are extremely known, as I am, would intimidate a lot of people. I don't want to do that to people, but I know I do.
Ray Charles
#20. My mom taught me a lot. A lot about minding your own business and leaving other people's business alone. And let them think what they want.
Ray Charles
#21. It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good.
Ray Charles
#22. I know it sounds strange - a blind teenager buzzin' round on a motorcycle - but I liked that; that was me. I had always been nervy, and I always had a lot of faith in my ability not to break my neck.
Ray Charles
#24. All my life I've always been so blue, born to lose, and now I'm losing you.
Ray Charles
#25. Any artist, when he goes in to record, should have the feeling that any song he records can be a hit. This may sound egotistical, but it makes sense.
Ray Charles
#26. I'm a firm believer in God himself, but that's as far as I can go. I'm not any denomination. I'm not Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist or Jewish or Muslim. I'm none of those things. And I'm sure that's just fine with God.
Ray Charles
#27. Many times during auditions, I was told that I couldn't carry a note with a bucket, and that I sure couldn't play the piano.
Ray Charles
#28. Do it right or don't do it at all. That comes from my mom. If there's something I want to do, I'm one of those people that won't be satisfied until I get it done. If I'm trying to sing something and I can't get it, I'm going to keep at it until I get where I want it.
Ray Charles
#29. 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.
Ray Charles
#30. Music is powerful. As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond.
Ray Charles
#31. 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.
Ray Charles
#32. When I was going blind, I didn't turn to God. It didn't seem to me then - and it doesn't seem to me now - that those items were His concern. Early on, I figured I better begin to learn how to count on myself, instead of counting on supernatural forces.
Ray Charles
#33. 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.
Ray Charles
#34. Learning to read music in Braille & play by ear helped me develop a [very] good memory.
Ray Charles
#35. Don't go backwards - you've already been there.
Ray Charles
#36. I really feel that if you're gonna be good, you gotta practice ... Practice whatever the hell you do.
Ray Charles
#37. Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it everything is a blank slate
Ray Charles
#38. I never wanted to be famous; I only wanted to be great.
Ray Charles
#39. You got to set your mind right and the rest will come to you naturally. No restrictions, no hang-ups, no stupid rules, no formalities, no forbidden fruit - just everyone getting and giving as much as he and she can.
Ray Charles
#40. Music is my life, professionally, for nearly 60 years. To be recognized by the academy is still the highest honor.
Ray Charles
#41. I never said I was a genius. I never said I was a cornerstone. I've never said I'm a legend in my own time. You never heard me say nothing like that.
Ray Charles
#43. If you can play the blues, you can do anything.
Ray Charles
#44. I don't think any of us really knows why we're here. But I think we're supposed to believe we're here for a purpose.
Ray Charles
#45. You ask me what I'd like to do that I haven't done and I say 'Nothin'!' I haven't any mountains to climb or oceans to swim. I've been an extremely blessed individual ... I'm not clamorin' for more trinkets. If I were to die tomorrow, I could say I've had a good life.
Ray Charles
#46. Before I begin, let me say right here and now that I'm a country boy. And, man, I mean the real backwoods! That's at the start of the start of the thing, and that's at the heart of the thing.
Ray Charles
#47. Mama was a country woman with a whole lot of common sense. She understood what most of our neighbors didn't - that I shouldn't grow dependent on anyone except myself. 'One of these days, I ain't gonna be here,' she kept hammering inside my head.
Ray Charles
#48. Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes.
Ray Charles
#49. Other arms reach out to me, Other eyes smile tenderly, Still in peaceful dreams I see, The road leads back to you.
Ray Charles
#50. The important thing is to feel your music, really feel it and believe it.
Ray Charles
#51. With singing, the name of the game is to make yourself believable. When somebody hears you sing a song, and they say, 'Oh, that must have happened to him,' that's when you know you're transmitting. It's like being a good actor. You make people feel things, emotions and what not.
Ray Charles
#52. I cant retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. Youd have to remove the music from me surgically - like you were taking out my appendix.
Ray Charles
#53. I'd like to think that when I sing a song, I can let you know all about the heartbreak, struggle, lies and kicks in the ass I've gotten over the years for being black and everything else, without actually saying a word about it.
Ray Charles
#54. The fact of the matter is, you don't give up what's natural. Anything I've fantasized about, I've done.
Ray Charles
#55. I can't help what I sound like. What I sound like is what i am. You know? I cannot be anything other that what I am.
Ray Charles
#56. I've always been the kind of person who, if there's anything that can kill me, I want to know something about it.
Ray Charles
#57. I always stay out of the rehearsal room you know when they first come in. Then once they had chance to play a little bit, then I walk in. Because I've seen guys fall apart.
Ray Charles
#58. I set my own rhythm and it was usually a little faster than other people's.
Ray Charles
#59. Music is nothing separate from me. It is me ... You'd have to remove the music surgically.
Ray Charles
#60. Hit the road Jack, don'tcha come back no more, no more, no more, no more. Hit the road Jack, don'tcha come back no more.
Ray Charles
#61. 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.'
Ray Charles
#62. I met Quincy Jones in Seattle. We were kids together ... liked each other when we met and have been close ever since. He wasn't writing when we met - in fact, I more or less started him off to write; voicing, harmony, and stuff like that.
Ray Charles
#63. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind.
Ray Charles
#64. If somebody don't like something that I do, that's his or her prerogative. Just like it's mine.
Ray Charles
#65. Dreams, if they're any good, are always a little bit crazy.
Ray Charles
#66. I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay, a big stack of bills that gets bigger each day.
Ray Charles
#67. Even though I'm not Jewish ... Israel is one of the few causes I feel good about supporting.
Ray Charles
#68. Art Tatum
he was a genius. And Einstein, not me.
Ray Charles
#69. Music is about the only thing left that people don't fight over.
Ray Charles
#70. I sing what I sing true. Each night I sing it the way I feel that night.
Ray Charles
#71. Sighted people, you gotta deal with them.
Ray Charles
#72. I don't know about other writers, but for myself, to write I must be relatively quiet - it's very difficult to write with the telephone and the doorbell ringing and conversation going on; I'm not that good a writer to write through all that!
Ray Charles
#73. I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't been able to hear.
Ray Charles
#74. My version of 'Georgia' became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching.
Ray Charles
#75. Women anchor me. They're there when I need them. They're sensitive to me, and I'm sensitive to them. I'm not saying I've loved that many women.
Ray Charles
#76. Crying's always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human.
Ray Charles
#77. Music to me is like breathing. I don't get tired of breathing, I don't get tired of music.
Ray Charles
#78. I heard someone say that all black people got rhythm. Bullshit.
Ray Charles
#79. The role of the designer is basically that of a good host, anticipating the needs of the guest.
Ray Charles
#80. I am very into lyrics. I start with what the words are saying, what the storyline is saying, like a good script. It should really capture me, do something for me. If I don't get it, it's not going to move people, and if it's not going to move people, it's not going to happen.
Ray Charles
#81. I had to pawn my clothes just to pay my rent.
Ray Charles
#82. Drunken talk isn't meant to be printed in the paper.
Ray Charles
#83. People couldn't understand why my mama would have this blind kid out doing things like cutting wood for the fire. But her thing was: He may be blind, but he ain't stupid.
Ray Charles
#84. I was born with music inside me. That's the only explanation I know of
Ray Charles
#85. I'm not a jazz singer, blues singer or country singer. I'm a singer that can sing rhythm & blues, that can sing jazz, that can sing country. There's a big difference. In other words, I'm not a specialist.
Ray Charles
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