John Legend Quotes

There's a certain confidence that comes with being sure about the way the world works.

I played classical as a kid.

I don't love the idea of three superstars coming together to form a dream team, I'd rather teams are built more organically, just as a fan it's more interesting to see.

The future started yesterday, and we're already late.

Soul is about authenticity. Soul is about finding the things in your life that are real and pure.

I listen to all those kinds of music, from classic soul to hip-hop to Brazilian music to, you know, jazz to indie to alternative... And for me, when I'm making music, it's all in my head, and all those influences in my head. So if something comes to me that's a reference from a different genre then people are used to hearing from me, I'm not afraid to go there with it.

I'm not going to run for office. I don't think that's the right move for me.

It's important for us to fight for certain changes that need to happen. And one of those issues that I really care about is education. But also another one is incarceration.

Hip-hop and R&B are especially fertile bases of collaboration. It always makes good records and good music.

There are more black men incarcerated today than there were slaves in 1850.

Kind of the critical acclaim of this movie [La La Land] is that it's striking a chord with the public in a way that has been really beautiful and powerful.

I think it's not enough for us to extend the hand of love. I think it's important that that goes both ways. It's important also that we look at policies we need to change as well.

Why wouldn't I help? What good reason do I have as a human being with power and a sense of empathy and morality, why wouldn't I do something?

We all must follow a different path to let our light shine, and that's what makes us so unpredictable and unique.

Musicians are in-season all the time.

I care more about the fans in general, just making sure they enjoy what I do. And then also I kind of had this kind of ideal of the kind of music I want to make and what I'm aiming for kind of creatively and just the quality of the music that I'm trying to make. And I have that in my head.

Critics like to describe and categorize things, and categories often have a way of limiting people.

All men should be feminists. If men cared about women's rights, the world would be a better place

Fear. People are afraid of talking about their fears and insecurities. They're afraid of expressing emotion beyond anger, dominance, or power, and they're afraid of getting in touch with their feminine side.

I just want my music to measure up to. Part of it's just thinking about my place in history and how this music is going to be perceived, if it's listened to 30, 40 years from now.

I was always the front man for what I was doing from when I was 6.

Witnessing the extreme poverty in remote parts of Affrica can make you feel sad and powerless until you realize how little it takes to change these people's lives fundamentally in sustainable ways.

Music wasn't forced on me [in my childhood]. It was something I wanted to do. And ever since, I've never stopped, I've never stopped playing music.

I thought it would be funny to take a photo in the White House bathroom, I take pictures everywhere I go, but I don't think I can top that one.

I do speak to kids a lot. I am very clear with them that not all of them should aspire to be me and not all of them should be aspire to be LeBron.

I wrote the song "Show Me" as a prayer to God asking simple, honest questions about life and death and why there is so much suffering in the world. As I grew with the song I realized I shouldn't limit these questions solely to God; I should ask those questions of others and of myself.

Recently, John and I got to go to Selma and perform it on the same bridge that Martin Luther King walked over. Once a landmark of a divided nation, the spirit of this bridge now for all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or social status. This bridge was built on hope and welded with compassion. Common

We want to do things that are interesting, great storytelling, some of it is gonna be more fun and funny, some of it is more serious and talking about interesting issues that we think are provocative and interesting to us. Kind of on a more political level. But, you know, just things that we find interesting that we think stories that need to be told.

In my neighborhood in Springfield, Ohio, there were a lot of young kids. We all played tackle football after school, but I knew very early on that I was not an athlete.

My head’s under water but I’m breathing fine

I'm pretty adventurous with food, so I'm not afraid to try anything.

People see me as pretty low key in a lot of ways. And for me, like, even choosing to be John Legend and to be who I am as a star, as an artist, it's a risk 'cause I - you know, I graduated from college and worked as a management consultant, and I could have had this very kind of buttoned-up life and worn suits to work every day.

Artists in general never stay in the same place, we keep growing. It's still you, you still have that core that you always had, but you work with new people and hear new things.

For me, no matter how much money you want to make off of singing, no matter what kind of fame you want to make, achieve, the most important thing to me is making music that you're proud of, making music that comes from you, comes from an authentic place in you.

I think you're always policing yourself by trying to do what you think would be "cool" and accepted by other people, until you start to figure out who you really want to be. Growing up is an ongoing push-and-pull of you being yourself and you performing to what society expects you to be.

People tell me all the time that my songs help them express things to loved ones that they may not be able to say themselves.

Experience is a great teacher.

Some people, you know, should just go to college and do what they do and have a great job and not worry about trying to be famous as a singer. It's not for everyone.

J. Ivy is a brilliant man with an incredible voice and a way with words. I've known him for over a decade and owe my stage name to him believing in me back then before I even had a record deal. I'm excited for him to share his truth with the world.

I was the front man of the choir and then when I was 12 and I was the leadsinger of my highschool groups.

I have a great band, with very talented players, and we give everything we have every night.

It's not enough to say we need to love each other, you have to go behind that and say we need to change these policies, we need to fight, we need to protest, we need to agitate for change.

At the end of the day, there's only a few major stars in the music business, and then there's all these people that are aspiring to be that.

I keep learning, listening, growing and experimenting.

Well, I like songs that have like a little bit of quirkiness to them.

I like cool jackets - a nice fall or winter coat. You can get a lot of use out of it, and you'll wear it frequently, so it can really set the tone of your uniform for the season.

I don't really marinate in anybody's album because I don't really want to sound like anybody else when I put my album out. So I'd rather not even be tempted to listen to a bunch of other stuff with any degree of emersion in it, cause I just don't want to sound like anything else, so I kinda focus on my own music.

I feel like my job is to make impact, spread love, tell great stories, inspire people, that's what I am going to do.