Top 180 Alicia Keys Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “That though passageway came with a surprising revelation. When life forces you to face yourself, what awaits in the mirror is a gift: vulnerability. Your heart is pierced. You’re broken open. You’re hyper-aware of what you’re feeling.”

— Alicia Keys

102. “I’m inspired by artists and musicians. There are so many wonderful and talented people in the world. I love discovering new music, new writers, or new art.”

— Alicia Keys

103. “I acted before I sang. And I did The Cosby Show, and things like that. But the music kind of came first. And it was a part of my essence. So I knew that I would evolve into this world.”

— Alicia Keys

104. “I realize that I want something more. Success is great, but then you also wake up in your hotel room at four in the morning and you’re like, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone here with me.”

— Alicia Keys

105. “I really appreciate Frank Ocean’s lyrical style, I appreciate the way that he can kind of draw you into this personal space, but it’s still lyrical. It’s almost poetic, in a way, but it’s very personal at the same time.”

— Alicia Keys

106. “Music is funny. I shouldn’t even ever talk about music, because you can have all the ideas in your head, and it never goes exactly the way that you think it’s gonna go.”

— Alicia Keys

107. “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.”

— Alicia Keys

108. “It has been about realizing that in order for the truth to set me free, I must first be brave enough to birth it.”

— Alicia Keys

109. “I feel more like I’m a person who has so much to offer in different capacities that it would be a danger for me not to give myself a chance to spread my wings in all different directions.”

— Alicia Keys

110. “When I’m on stage, my interaction with the audience is something that really makes me come alive. It’s a feeling like no other. The energy of the crowd fuels something new inside.”

— Alicia Keys

111. “I grew up in the theater, my mother is an actress, I was always around the world of acting and theater.”

— Alicia Keys

112. “I have this vintage Harley-Davidson motorcycle jacket. When I put it on, it has this supercool feeling to it.”

— Alicia Keys

113. “When I was younger, studying classical music, I really had to put in the time. Three hours a day is not even nice – you have to put in six.”

— Alicia Keys

114. “I feel like the majority of the fear that I had or that we have we hold from other people. They’re like people that we trust; they’re their fears. All of a sudden we think that they’re our fears.”

— Alicia Keys

115. “Only joy comes from song.”

— Alicia Keys

116. “I see what happens when one gets very attached to material things. That’s just not what my life is.”

— Alicia Keys

117. “Stevie Wonder’s records introduced me to ’70s soul when I was 12 or 13.”

— Alicia Keys

118. “I think following my instinct has proven to lead me in the right direction, and it’s hard to hear sometimes, because it’s a noisy world and there’s a lot of people talking to you.”

— Alicia Keys

119. “I grew up around the theatre. My mother is an actress. I would fall asleep on tons of theatre chairs. It’s in my blood; it’s in my spirit and my fabric of who I am.”

— Alicia Keys

120. “I’ve always been strong-minded, but I wonder.”

— Alicia Keys

121. “I’ve learned that while I’d be a fool not to stay open to the advice and experiences of the smart, amazing people in my life, I also need to listen to what I have to say.”

— Alicia Keys

122. “I was so deeply involved in music, I had already outgrown all the pressure of high school cliques and gossip.”

— Alicia Keys

123. “I was just talking to Bono the other day, and he was like, “Are you doing shows?” I’ve just been off the road for a month-and-a-half, and he was like, “You lucky girl.””

— Alicia Keys

124. “I believe Aids is the most important issue we face, because how we treat the poor is a reflection of who we are as a people.”

— Alicia Keys

125. “A Minor is one of my all-time favorite keys to play in. It’s a very moody key, and also ‘A’ is the first letter of my name. It just represents the songs through my eyes.”

— Alicia Keys

126. “At the end of the day, so many things that we hold so much value with, it just doesn’t even mean anything. I really try to stay focused on being really positive.”

— Alicia Keys

127. “When you don’t speak the truth for years at a time, the words left unspoken slowly leak the air out of your connection. Even if, years later, you are ready to say what you couldn’t earlier, the moment has passed. The details and circumstances have faded from memory, and yet the emotions linger. And then the day finally comes when you no longer recognize the person you first loved.”

— Alicia Keys

128. “There was no other path for me. I knew this was my path. I had to follow it.”

— Alicia Keys

129. “But from this side of life, I can see how every moment, every experience, every pivot, even my supposed missteps have been life’s way of getting me where I have always been meant to go. Rather than resisting the current, I’ve learned to surrender.”

— Alicia Keys

130. “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.”

— Alicia Keys

131. “Gangsta rap was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. Gangsta rap didnt exist.”

— Alicia Keys

132. “It’s not until I hear songs that I’ve done, that I realize how much of an inspiration music from the ’60s and ’70s has been.”

— Alicia Keys

133. “I want to continue to produce film, television, and theater, and to make the most amazing music that I’ve made in my life.”

— Alicia Keys

134. “I think it’s the ego in us that screws us up.”

— Alicia Keys

135. “I loved grand pianos and small pianos, too.”

— Alicia Keys

136. “I grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood.”

— Alicia Keys

137. “I think I grew up really fast; I grew up in this really fast-paced business, and I never understood what it meant to take a break or take time off or recover, and I paid for it.”

— Alicia Keys

138. “If I didn’t love it, I would not record it.”

— Alicia Keys

139. “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.”

— Alicia Keys

140. “I think there was something about being in a tough environment that gave me a certain drive.”

— Alicia Keys

141. “Mozart would play a counterpart with his left hand while using his right to mock it. It was blue, dark, shadowy – and it made me feel something. That’s when I realized music was inside me.”

— Alicia Keys

142. “Living will always be a struggle looking for someone to love you.”

— Alicia Keys

143. “I promised myself that I’d never actually admit to listening to ‘New Kids on the Block.’”

— Alicia Keys

144. “How terrible would it have been if I had come out with some watered-down version of who I am? People fell in love with the real me, and I still feel blessed that that was how the journey began.”

— Alicia Keys

145. “I like to do outdoorsy things: hikes, trails, running, swimming. I love the sun. I’m all about the warmth.”

— Alicia Keys

146. “I learned the cello, but I would still need a massive amount of practice. But I do play classical music, so I understand where that comes from.”

— Alicia Keys

147. “Our mission goes beyond commerce, it goes beyond technology. Our intent is to preserve music’s importance in our lives, music is the language of love, of laughter, of heartbreak, of mystery. It’s the world’s true, true, without question, universal language.”

— Alicia Keys

148. “When I did get signed and I was going around letting people know what I was about, that’s exactly how I did it: me on the piano, playing a couple of songs I’d written and talking to the people in between. That’s how I got my performance chops up.”

— Alicia Keys

149. “My mother is an actress, and she used to drag me from theater to theater and reading to reading.”

— Alicia Keys

150. “Sometimes I’ve gotten photographs back and people have literally shaven off pieces of me, and I tell them to put it back.”

— Alicia Keys