Ray Charles Quotes
120 Ray Charles Quotes
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Sometimes my memory’s been sharp as a tack; other times my brain’s given out and I’ve just drawn blanks.
Ray Charles
I’m a country boy. And, man, I mean the real backwoods!
Ray Charles
You hear folks talking ‘bout being poor. But listen here: When I say we were poor, I’m spelling it with a capital P. Even compared to other blacks in Greensville, we were on the bottom of the ladder looking up at everyone else. Nothing below us ‘cept the ground.
Ray Charles
There’s a lot about this part of my life – the earliest years – that remains mysterious, but you have to remember that I was too young to do any serious questioning. And besides, a little kid wasn’t supposed to be asking any questions.
Ray Charles
[On his mama] Didn’t drink, smoke, or swear. Lots of rules. Lots of practical, down-to-earth common sense. And at the tope of the list were two: You do not beg and you do not steal.
Ray Charles
I slept on the floor. It was very cool down there, specially on hot summer nights.
Ray Charles
Often we found ourselves in the kind of shack which could have gone up in smoke at the drop of a match. But somehow we made it.
Ray Charles
[More on his mother] She let me roam, let me make my own mistakes, let me discover the world for myself.
Ray Charles
We ate everything on the hog except the oink. Neck bones, chitlins, collard greens, rice smothered with onion gravy, cabbage with thick pieces of ham, sweet watermelon… Man, we might be poor, but we ate good.
Ray Charles
We didn’t have a piano in church until I became much older – and the services were basic and raw. That’s how I got my first religion and my first music.
Ray Charles
In the country, you did what adults told you to do. If you didn’t, you got a licking. Never more complicated than that.
Ray Charles
I was a happy kid.
Ray Charles
Music was the only thing I was really anxious to get out of bed for.
Ray Charles
From the moment I learned that there were piano keys to be mashed, I started mashing ‘em, trying to make sounds out of feelings.
Ray Charles
Even as a toddler I was poking my nose inside engines and motors to see what made ‘em tick.
Ray Charles
A simple time and a simple place.
Ray Charles
Going blind. Sounds like a fate worse than death, doesn’t it? Seems like something which would get a little kid down, make him afraid, and leave him half-crazy and sad. Well, I’m here to tell you that id didn’t happen that way – at least not with me.
Ray Charles
It took me two years to lose my sight completely. It slipped away gradually. And I suppose that’s the reason I was never too frightened.
Ray Charles
I was like a guy who stands on top of a mountain and one week sees fifteen miles off, the next week only ten miles, the third week only five. At first, I could still make out large forms, then only colors, then only night from day.
Ray Charles
Mama knew what was best, and she insisted that I get some education in one form or another. She couldn’t see me growing up without knowing how to read and write. She understand that one day I’d have to be on my own.
Ray Charles
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.
Ray Charles
[On asking people about the moon and they can’t answer the question] Does it go back to being a sliver, or does it get small gradually? …With all that twenty-twenty, y’all don’t even look at the moon.
Ray Charles
Timing is everything.
Ray Charles
Does that stink enough for you?
Ray Charles
At my back I always hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near.
Ray Charles
How … can a question be too tough? The truth is the truth.
Ray Charles
When my mother died, I didn’t understand death. … You can’t make a deal with God. Death is cold-blooded…
Ray Charles
I could praise Jesus till I’m blue in the face. I could fall on my knees and plead. Pray till the cows come home. But Mama ain’t coming back. So if Mama gave me religion, the religion said, ‘Believe in yourself.’
Ray Charles
Every key unlocks something I own. Don’t owe nobody nothing. Ain’t afraid of nobody.
Ray Charles
I was the same Ray then as now. I was going to do what I had to do. I wanted to change up the music. Wanted to make some bread.
Ray Charles
I’m a man of routine. Don’t like changes. Don’t like surprises. Just keep me doing what I’m doing.
Ray Charles
Chemo kicked my ass. Nearly did me in. I was at death’s door. It wasn’t pretty.
Ray Charles
[About chemotherapy] It ain’t just physical… It’s mental. It has you thinking.
Ray Charles
If you picture yourself well, you get well. If you can conceive it, you achieve it. I’m focusing on the future.
Ray Charles
I copied. And then innovated.
Ray Charles
When they say you invented soul music, you’re going to argue?
Ray Charles
Got bread to leave behind. Bread for charities. Bread for my kids. But for every musician out there who’s made a name, there’s a dozen cats back in Jacksonville or Dallas twice as bad as them. They just never got known.
Ray Charles
[On being a musician] Man, it was a wild-assed horse race.
Ray Charles
Indoor plumbing was something we never even dreamed of.
Ray Charles
What’s done is done. Ain’t no taking it back. I can’t turn around, and I don’t want to.
Ray Charles
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