Top 100 John Legend Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I don’t think I’m craving any more fame. But success and being recognized for making great work all around the world, I think it’s a great thing.”

— John Legend

52. “J. Ivy is a brilliant man with an incredible voice and a way with words. I’ve known him for over a decade and owe my stage name to him believing in me back then before I even had a record deal. I’m excited for him to share his truth with the world.”

— John Legend

53. “The issue I focus on the most is extreme poverty. I think it’s kind of out of sight out of mind. I wish there would be more stories about that to connect people to what’s happening. To personalize it, to make it real to people, to inspire them to action.”

— John Legend

54. “No matter how big or successful and famous you become, if you do that, that’s the most fulfilling thing, is making music that you love and that you’re proud of.”

— John Legend

55. “Witnessing the extreme poverty in remote parts of Affrica can make you feel sad and powerless until you realize how little it takes to change these people’s lives fundamentally in sustainable ways.”

— John Legend

56. “Musicians are in-season all the time.”

— John Legend

57. “People tell me all the time that my songs help them express things to loved ones that they may not be able to say themselves.”

— John Legend

58. “As a young black boy, it made me proud to see black leaders that did something amazing and made the world change.”

— John Legend

59. “The struggle for freedom and justice is now.”

— John Legend

60. “I’ve written good love songs when I have been in love and I’ve written good love songs when I haven’t.”

— John Legend

61. “I’m trying to be me and embrace all the parts of me that have grown up, listened to more music and soaked up more influences.”

— John Legend

62. “My mother, I want her to like my music, but she’s not exactly my target audience. So I care more about the fans in general, just making sure they enjoy what I do.”

— John Legend

63. “There’s a lot of hurry up and wait. But it gives you time to write a song.”

— John Legend

64. “In terms of the technology I use the most, it’s probably a tie between my Blackberry and my MacBook Pro laptop. That’s how I communicate with the rest of the world and how I handle all the business I have to handle.”

— John Legend

65. “If a relationship is going to work, it will require compromise and, even then, it is not always going to end the way you want it to.”

— John Legend

66. “For me I’m actually doing what I normally do when I do my solo thing and the other thing is actually more new to me.”

— John Legend

67. “Music, to me, if it’s good, it’s good. That’s all that matters.”

— John Legend

68. “I gravitate toward people that are a little more outrageous than I am. And we complement each other well.”

— John Legend

69. “I listen to all those kinds of music, from classic soul to hip-hop to Brazilian music to, you know, jazz to indie to alternative. So whatever. I listen to all if it. Classic rock and classic pop, all of that.”

— John Legend

70. “Sometimes I just think people are haters. And if they’re haters, you can listen to what they have to say but you have to take it with a grain of salt.”

— John Legend

71. “I was the front man of the choir and then when I was 12 and I was the leadsinger of my highschool groups.”

— John Legend

72. “There’s a certain confidence that comes with being sure about the way the world works.”

— John Legend

73. “To me, as a musician, there aren’t any boundaries genre-wise as far as what can you listen to to inspire you.”

— John Legend

74. “The weirdest thing about Hillary Clinton’s email ‘scandal’ is finding out some of our senators still don’t use email.”

— John Legend

75. “Marvin Gaye was one of the coolest. I look to him as a style icon and as an artist.”

— John Legend

76. “When we see people that are impoverished and people who are dealt an unfair hand, then if we have the power to help them, we should try to do that.”

— John Legend

77. “I just want my music to measure up to. Part of it’s just thinking about my place in history and how this music is going to be perceived, if it’s listened to 30, 40 years from now.”

— John Legend

78. “If a few people decide not to buy my album it’s really not going to change my life that much.”

— John Legend

79. “Why wouldn’t I help? What good reason do I have as a human being with power and a sense of empathy and morality, why wouldn’t I do something?”

— John Legend

80. “I’m honestly not a great gift giver. I could give better – my girlfriends have always complained about that.”

— John Legend

81. “I do speak to kids a lot. I am very clear with them that not all of them should aspire to be me and not all of them should be aspire to be LeBron.”

— John Legend

82. “I used read about Dr. King a lot as a kid. Independently, from being assigned it or being told by my parents or anything, I was just really excited about him. So I just started reading about him very young and was inspired by his legacy and looked to him as a role model.”

— John Legend

83. “But in my mind I’ve always been a solo artist- I’ve just been working with a lot of great people like Kanye and Alicia Keys and Jay-Z.”

— John Legend

84. “John legend is a nickname that somebody started calling me a while ago and part of it is ’cos I sound like an old man when I sing.”

— John Legend

85. “As a nation – and as a world – we need more truth.”

— John Legend

86. “My first big break came with Lauryn Hill on a track called Everything is Everything, I played piano on that track way back in 1998.”

— John Legend

87. “I want to move people.”

— John Legend

88. “I like songs that have like a little bit of quirkiness to them. What I like to do with songs, is kind of throw a little curveball in the lyrics or in the arrangement, to kind of give it a little twist to it.”

— John Legend

89. “Happy that New York passed marriage equality tonight. A victory for human rights. Progress.”

— John Legend

90. “I don’t love the idea of three superstars coming together to form a dream team, I’d rather teams are built more organically, just as a fan it’s more interesting to see.”

— John Legend

91. “We should care about what is going on in the world.”

— John Legend

92. “Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.”

— John Legend

93. “I think the most important thing is that I’m making music that the people enjoy. So the fans, the people that are out there listening to music and consuming music, I want them to enjoy it and love it. And so that’s more important to me than Grammys.”

— John Legend

94. “I always saw myself as a singer-songwriter, a solo-artist, that’s why working with other artists was never satisfying for me.”

— John Legend

95. “My line is probably a little more conservative than some of my compatriots in the business. But again, I think it’s all – like, it just – it comes down to me knowing who I am and knowing how I want to be seen in the world, how I want to discuss things.”

— John Legend

96. “I have a great band, with very talented players, and we give everything we have every night.”

— John Legend

97. “I don’t get to listen to music for fun very often; a lot of what I’m hearing is for work and isn’t released yet.”

— John Legend

98. “I hear melodies and hooks all day. I’ve always been that way, since I was a kid.”

— John Legend

99. “I was always the front man for what I was doing from when I was 6.”

— John Legend

100. “There’s so much music out there, and so many different styles that I’ve been influenced by, so each album reflects some of that knowledge or influence that I’ve had.”

— John Legend