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I thought I had to be perfect. I would often make choices I thought would make everyone else happy. I lived at a pace that was good for my career, whether it was good for me or not. I have learned how important it is to check in with myself and listen, really listen.

Alicia Keys

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Alicia Keys
Age: 43
Born: 1981
Born: January 24
Actor
Art Collector
Composer
Musician
Pianist
Poet
Presenter
Record Producer
Recording Artist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Harlem
New York
Alicia J. Augello Cook
Good
Perfect
Lived
Would
Everyone
Career
Often
Careers
Else
Listen
Thought
Learned
Important
Choices
Check
Really
Whether
Pace
Make
Happy
Checks

More quotes by Alicia Keys

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I see what happens when one gets very attached to material things. That's just not what my life is.
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When I was first learning songs, I'd have a favorite song, and I'd take the chords and twist them around. I'd learn the chords and then play them backward. That was my first experimenting with writing a song.
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As a lyricist, you love to hear other great lyrics or other great concepts.
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Right now the way I define beauty is individuality and wisdom, which I think creates a certain inner confidence. And not confidence in a way that's only on the surface, but a deep-down knowing of yourself or settling into who you are.
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My music comes from many, many, many places. My emotions, my feelings, my thoughts, and conversations I have with people I know who influence me.
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Simplicity makes me happy.
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Musicians used to be way more instrumental just in providing a soundtrack to what's going on in the world. And it's also important to state what we think. There's like this fear for their career, if they have anything intelligent to say about politics. And that's really messed up.
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Moments are so fleeting I want to hold on to the good ones.
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Something I've learned from people like U2, the Stones and Lenny Kravitz is that the grind of live shows is so necessary [to build your career].
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For me, doing a show, the excitement of singing live, and the possibility that you're not gonna be perfect - that's the thrill of it.
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Sometimes I've gotten photographs back and people have literally shaven off pieces of me, and I tell them to put it back.
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I loved grand pianos and small pianos, too.
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I love the written word so much, I know it's gonna flow naturally.
Alicia Keys
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I think there's an energy about just remaining excited. Like, you can't be excited when you're not doing something new.
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I love being a mom. And I think what I love the most is the way it makes me think about what's important and what's not important. What to fight for and what to just be cool with. What it is that I'm teaching through example and what it is that I was taught that I don't want to teach.
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I've met many young women who are HIV positive and courageously fighting the disease. Their determination to live a full life and see their children live in a better world is deeply inspiring to me.
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Gangsta rap was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. Gangsta rap didnt exist.
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The more you know the stronger you become, the closer you feel to yourself and the farther you can go.
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Oh My God, the [hip-hop] videos! The imagery is so awful! I just can't get with it at all. The best thing I can say about it is that sometimes you have to see that kind of stuff so as to have a more balanced view about why it's so bad.
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I love children and I love family and I love that interaction. Because I had a really close relationship with my mother, I understand that deep powerful love, and it's so beautiful. To be a mother to a child is the most brilliant gift it's gorgeous.
Alicia Keys