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Music is nothing separate from me. It is me... You'd have to remove the music surgically.
Ray Charles
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Ray Charles
Age: 71 †
Born: 1932
Born: September 23
Died: 2004
Died: June 10
Composer
Jazz Musician
Music Arranger
Musician
Pianist
Recording Artist
Saxophonist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Soul Musician
Vocalist
Albany
Georgia
Ray Charles Robinson
Raymond Charles Robinson Peter
Musical
Music
Nothing
Surgically
Remove
Separate
More quotes by Ray Charles
[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.
Ray Charles
I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't been able to hear.
Ray Charles
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.
Ray Charles
Art Tatum -- he was a genius. And Einstein, not me.
Ray Charles
I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay, a big stack of bills that gets bigger each day.
Ray Charles
I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind.
Ray Charles
It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good.
Ray Charles
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.
Ray Charles
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.
Ray Charles
Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it everything is a blank slate
Ray Charles
There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we're here to explore new possibilities.
Ray Charles
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.
Ray Charles
I cant retire from music any more than I can retire from my liver. Youd have to remove the music from me surgically—like you were taking out my appendix.
Ray Charles
Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. ... This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it.
Ray Charles
Just like you can buy grades of silk, you can buy grades of justice.
Ray Charles
I'm not into the money thing. You can only sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat one meal at a time, or be in one car at a time. So I don't have to have millions of dollars to be happy. All I need are clothes on my back, a decent meal, and a little loving when I feel like it. That's the bottom line.
Ray Charles
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.
Ray Charles
I think that most great artists who are extremely known, as I am, would intimidate a lot of people. I don't want to do that to people, but I know I do.
Ray Charles
I'm a firm believer in God himself, but that's as far as I can go. I'm not any denomination. I'm not Catholic or Presbyterian or Baptist or Methodist or Jewish or Muslim. I'm none of those things. And I'm sure that's just fine with God.
Ray Charles
Sometimes my dreams are so deep that I dream that I'm dreaming.
Ray Charles
