What I've got to live up to, is being myself. If I do that, the rest will take care of itself.

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

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.

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.

Don't go backwards -- you've already been there.

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

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

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.

To me, music is entertainment -- what else can it be? In fact, it's the only language I know of that's universal.

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.

When I started to sing like myself -- as opposed to imitating Nat Cole, which I had done for a while -- when I started singing like Ray Charles, it had this spiritual and churchy, this religious or gospel sound. It had this holiness and preachy tone to it. It was very controversial. I got a lot of criticism for it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

On his heroin addiction: 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.

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.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder and tears are only rain to make love grow.

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

If somebody don't like something that I do, that's his or her prerogative. Just like it's mine.