166 Quotes by Ray Charles

Goodbye don't mean gone.

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

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.

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.

I had to pawn my clothes just to pay my rent.

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.

Many times during auditions, I was told that I couldn't carry a note with a bucket, and that I sure couldn't play the piano.

It's like Duke Ellington said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad. And you can tell when something is good.

I'm not a jazz singer, blues singer or country singer. I'm a singer that can sing rhythm & blues, that can sing jazz, that can sing country. There's a big difference. In other words, I'm not a specialist.