Ray Charles Quotes

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

I had to pawn my clothes just to pay my rent.

Live each day like it's your last, 'cause one day you gonna be right

Even though I'm not Jewish...Israel is one of the few causes I feel good about supporting.

Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it everything is a blank slate

I set my own rhythm, and I do believe it was usually a little faster than most other people's.

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.

Sometimes my dreams are so deep that I dream that I'm dreaming.

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.

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.

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.

Drunken talk isn’t meant to be printed in the paper.

Just because you can't see anything , doesn't mean you should shut your eyes.

I never considered myself part of rock 'n' roll. My stuff was more adult. It was more difficult for teenagers to relate to; my stuff was filled with more despair than anything you'd associate with rock 'n' roll. Since I couldn't see people dancing, I didn't write jitterbugs or twists. I wrote rhythms that moved me. My style requires pure heart singing.

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.

Music to me is just like breathing. I have to have it. It's part of me.

Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.

There's such a thing as too much happiness and sadness. What I'm after is contentment.

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

I heard someone say that all black people got rhythm. Bullshit.

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.

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.'

All my life I've always been so blue, born to lose, and now I'm losing you.

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.

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.