Top 35 Michael Bolton Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “It’s an important thing to remember where you came from.”

— Michael Bolton

2. “Said I loved you but I lied, cause this is more than love I feel inside.”

— Michael Bolton

3. “I’m pretty irreverent. There is a lot of need to find humour in life. Although I’d never be as disrespectful to laugh at someone’s expense.”

— Michael Bolton

4. “No matter how great we get with digital formats of instrumentation, nothing really quite duplicates the real thing.”

— Michael Bolton

5. “Its a combination of melody and lyrics, not one without the other. Its a confluence of these different elements that makes something powerful.”

— Michael Bolton

6. “It’s understanding the intention of a composer that allows a producer and an arranger to make those moments speak.”

— Michael Bolton

7. “I’m proud of my mentors. Ray Charles is the strongest influence on me as a singer.”

— Michael Bolton

8. “As you get older, your experiences become more precious. Nothing material is important to me. It’s people who are precious.”

— Michael Bolton

9. “You know, fans who think we were made for each other and describe it in excruciating detail. You get peculiar things and beautiful things. But either way they’re clearly thinking about you, which is nice.”

— Michael Bolton

10. “The bigger you are, the harder they come down on you.”

— Michael Bolton

11. “I have to be happy in the here and now because every time you start focusing on your legacy you’re really setting yourself up for disappointment.”

— Michael Bolton

12. “To sing along with Stevie Wonder, you had to make your voice do things it was not accustomed to doing.”

— Michael Bolton

13. “It’s not quite the Tom Jones show, but yes, I’ve had undergarments. If I get a bra chucked on stage I’ll hold it up so the audience can decide what to think. And I’ll usually blame a guy for doing it.”

— Michael Bolton

14. “I like the simple ‘I love your work’ letters. You never get sick of people’s appreciation. They think they’re troubling you, but it’s lovely people associate my songs with certain moments in their lives.”

— Michael Bolton

15. “To be honest I listen to the female opinion on my photos. If all the girls in the office choose a certain shot, even if I don’t like it, it becomes a front runner because, really, what do I know about how others perceive me?”

— Michael Bolton

16. “When your car is about to go off a cliff, it’s a weird time to be thinking about gas mileage and drag coefficients; better to take the right control action – look out the window and steer or use the brake until you’re back on course.”

— Michael Bolton

17. “The whole industry evolves around a great song.”

— Michael Bolton

18. “Yes!!! I booked a commercial!!!”

— Michael Bolton

19. “When you have great songs that are going to live longer than the composers, everything you can do to bring those different elements and nuances out, serve the song.”

— Michael Bolton

20. “I was blown away by the control and the range that I was hearing. I’m listening to Pavarotti and thinking, What the hell have I been doing with my voice all these years?”

— Michael Bolton

21. “I still get butterflies. It’s because there’s a certain level of responsibility you carry when doing a concert. You’ve got to sound at least as good as the record.”

— Michael Bolton

22. “When I started studying for the arias it was like going into training for a heavyweight title fight.”

— Michael Bolton

23. “One song will launch you, but you don’t want to be a one-song artist.”

— Michael Bolton

24. “Considering the amount of information we’re bombarded by, it’s amazing if a song can transcend time.”

— Michael Bolton

25. “Dr. King is so inspiring, so impressive, so moving as a human being.”

— Michael Bolton

26. “You can’t make everybody love what you do, but you can know how great you feel doing it.”

— Michael Bolton

27. “I accept that appearance is a big thing in this business. But being around Hollywood and having actor friends and doing music videos, it does make you more aware of how you look. With music videos they send you rough cuts, and in certain frames of me, I just see a nose advert.”

— Michael Bolton

28. “With the internet, things are so much more immediate. People taste-test things to see if they want to buy the CD.”

— Michael Bolton

29. “But I’m not superstitious. I don’t really eat dinner before I go on stage, because digesting a lot of food kind of shuts you down. And I try not to get involved in emotional conversations with anyone beforehand either, so I’ve got a clear head.”

— Michael Bolton

30. “The Top 40 is geared toward 20 and under, not 20 and up. That’s the audience I’m geared to.”

— Michael Bolton

31. “You’re presuming too much by using the word legacy – presuming that someone is going to care.”

— Michael Bolton

32. “Black music has increased my enjoyment of what I do. It has increased my range, my ability to reach into myself and accept myself.”

— Michael Bolton

33. “I have friends who’ve tried to break into the UK, who went back with their tails between their legs. Fortunately I’ve had the opposite experience.”

— Michael Bolton

34. “We used to call it recurrent airplay when someone had a hit.”

— Michael Bolton

35. “Whoever best serves the song is going to be served by the song.”

— Michael Bolton

36. “There are certain people who have become better artists, but they’re brilliant at marketing. I think someone who’s been phenomenal like that is Madonna.”

— Michael Bolton

37. “Someone told me there was a publisher that could find a good home for my songs, but I didn’t want to give up my pursuit of a career in the business as an artist.”

— Michael Bolton

38. “A lot of my success comes from black music. It’s something I’m very proud of.”

— Michael Bolton