19 quotes
You better live every day like your last because one day you're going to be right.
Wisdom for the Soul of Black Folk (2007)
Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)
Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. … This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it.
I was born with music inside me.
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)
My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)
Music has 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.
The fact of the matter is, you don't give up what's natural. Anything I've fantasized about, I've done.
Los Angeles Times (1989)
I got a woman way over town,
That's good to me, Oh yeah!
You gotta know how to get to people's heart
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.
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)
Music is nothing separate from me. It is me. I can't retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. You'd have to remove the music from me surgically — like you were taking out my appendix.
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)
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.
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)
Yeah yeah, what'd I say, all right
Well, tell me what'd I say, yeah
Tell me what'd I say right now
Tell me what'd I say
I know that men ain't supposed to cry, but I think that's wrong. 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.
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)
But now if I can wrap myself up in that song, and when that song gets to be a part of me, and affects me emotionally, then the emotions that I go through, chances are I’ll be able to communicate to you. Make the people out there become a part of the life of this song that you’re singing about. That’s soul when you can do that.
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.
Brother Ray : Ray Charles' Own Story (1978)
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.
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (1998)
Soul is when you take a song and make it a part of you — a part that's so true, so real, people think it must have happened to you. … It's like electricity — we don't really know what it is, do we? But it's a force that can light a room. Soul is like electricity, like a spirit, a drive, a power.
Other arms reach out to me
Other eyes smile tenderly
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you.
Georgia, oh Georgia, no peace I find...
Just an old sweet song
Keeps Georgia on my mind.
Misattributed