Top 60 Ray Charles Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Live each day like it’s your last, ’cause one day you gonna be right.”

— Ray Charles

2. “Don’t go backwards – you’ve already been there.”

— Ray Charles

3. “Music to me is like breathing. I don’t get tired of breathing, I don’t get tired of music.”

— Ray Charles

4. “Hit the road Jack, don’tcha come back no more, no more, no more, no more. Hit the road Jack, don’tcha come back no more.”

— Ray Charles

5. “I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.”

— Ray Charles

6. “What is a soul? It’s like electricity – we don’t really know what it is, but it’s a force that can light a room.”

— Ray Charles

7. “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

8. “Music is the chalk to the blackboard of life. Without it everything is a blank slate.”

— Ray Charles

9. “Just because you can’t see anything, doesn’t mean you should shut your eyes.”

— Ray Charles

10. “My mom taught me a lot. A lot about minding your own business and leaving other people’s business alone. And let them think what they want.”

— Ray Charles

11. “There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we’re here to explore new possibilities.”

— Ray Charles

12. “Do it right or don’t do it at all. That comes from my mom. If there’s something I want to do, I’m one of those people that won’t be satisfied until I get it done. If I’m trying to sing something and I can’t get it, I’m going to keep at it until I get where I want it.”

— Ray Charles

13. “I was born with music inside me.”

— Ray Charles

14. “Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.”

— Ray Charles

15. “There’s nothing written in the Bible, Old or New testament, that says, ‘If you believe in Me, you ain’t going to have no troubles.’”

— Ray Charles

16. “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

17. “What I’ve got to live up to, is being myself. If I do that, the rest will take care of itself.”

— Ray Charles

18. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder and tears are only rain to make love grow.”

— Ray Charles

19. “The role of the designer is basically that of a good host, anticipating the needs of the guest.”

— Ray Charles

20. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t been able to hear.”

— Ray Charles

21. “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

22. “The fact of the matter is, you don’t give up what’s natural. Anything I’ve fantasized about, I’ve done.”

— Ray Charles

23. “Dreams, if they’re any good, are always a little bit crazy.”

— Ray Charles

24. “The important thing is to feel your music, really feel it and believe it.”

— Ray Charles

25. “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

26. “Affluence separates people. Poverty knits ’em together. You got some sugar and I don’t; I borrow some of yours. Next month you might not have any flour; well, I’ll give you some of mine.”

— Ray Charles

27. “There’s such a thing as too much happiness and sadness. What I’m after is contentment.”

— Ray Charles

28. “I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water.”

— Ray Charles

29. “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.”

— Ray Charles

30. “My version of ‘Georgia’ became the state song of Georgia. That was a big thing for me, man. It really touched me. Here is a state that used to lynch people like me suddenly declaring my version of a song as its state song. That is touching.”

— Ray Charles

31. “Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory.”

— Ray Charles

32. “Sometimes my dreams are so deep that I dream that I’m dreaming.”

— Ray Charles

33. “If you can play the blues, you can do anything.”

— Ray Charles

34. “Art Tatum – he was a genius. And Einstein, not me.”

— Ray Charles

35. “I don’t think any of us really knows why we’re here. But I think we’re supposed to believe we’re here for a purpose.”

— Ray Charles

36. “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.”

— Ray Charles

37. “I’d like to think that when I sing a song, I can let you know all about the heartbreak, struggle, lies and kicks in the ass I’ve gotten over the years for being black and everything else, without actually saying a word about it.”

— Ray Charles

38. “I really feel that if you’re gonna be good, you gotta practice... Practice whatever the hell you do.”

— Ray Charles

39. “Music’s been around a long time, and there’s going to be music long after Ray Charles is dead. I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind. If it’s a big record, that’s the frosting on the cake, but music’s the main meal.”

— Ray Charles

40. “Women anchor me. They’re there when I need them. They’re sensitive to me, and I’m sensitive to them. I’m not saying I’ve loved that many women.”

— Ray Charles

41. “Music to me is just like breathing. I have to have it. It’s part of me.”

— Ray Charles

42. “Other arms reach out to me, Other eyes smile tenderly, Still in peaceful dreams I see, The road leads back to you.”

— Ray Charles

43. “Now Listen You know I work so hard, all day long Everything I try to do, Seem to always turn out wrong That’s why I wanna stop by on my way home and say Let’s go get stoned.”

— Ray Charles

44. “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

45. “Crying’s always been a way for me to get things out which are buried deep, deep down. When I sing, I often cry. Crying is feeling, and feeling is being human.”

— Ray Charles

46. “Drunken talk isn’t meant to be printed in the paper.”

— Ray Charles

47. “I just want to make my mark, leave something musically good behind.”

— Ray Charles

48. “Just like you can buy grades of silk, you can buy grades of justice.”

— Ray Charles

49. “Music is about the only thing left that people don’t fight over.”

— Ray Charles

50. “All my life I’ve always been so blue, born to lose, and now I’m losing you.”

— Ray Charles