Top 233 Quotes & Sayings by John Legend - Page 4

Sometimes success is just limited to festival circuit.

Recently, John and I got to go to Selma and perform it on the same bridge that Martin Luther King walked over. Once a landmark of a divided nation, the spirit of this bridge now for all people regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or social status. This bridge was built on hope and welded with compassion. Common

That's the evergreen nature of a great song. They can be resurrected. They can be covered. They can find new relevance due to changing circumstances in history.

I'm used to getting sexy sometimes in the lyrics.

I've always followed politics, and I think politics is everybody's business because we're electing someone who's going to be making important decisions that will affect all of our lives.

I think it's hard to really write a song that will educate someone because songs are meant to be ... you don't want to be too didactic in a song because it doesn't make for good music. And I think the role of songs can be to inspire people but there needs to education and prose to back that up.

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.

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... And for me, when I'm making music, it's all in my head, and all those influences in my head. So if something comes to me that's a reference from a different genre then people are used to hearing from me, I'm not afraid to go there with it.

I was in an a cappella group in school, so it particularly helped me keep my piano chops up.

We want to do things that are interesting, great storytelling, some of it is gonna be more fun and funny, some of it is more serious and talking about interesting issues that we think are provocative and interesting to us. Kind of on a more political level. But, you know, just things that we find interesting that we think stories that need to be told.

The fun part about collaborating is that you naturally just bounce off each other's energy and learn off each other.

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.

I never went through a period where I didn't want to play music. I've always loved it and it's always been a huge part of my life.

I know when things feel a little, like, intrusive and when they don't. I don't have a lot to hide. But I do sometimes think, don't share everything.

Anybody under the age of forty knows hip-hop, gospel and R&ampB pretty well, and it's all a part of what we consider to be 'black music.' There is a natural synergy between the three.

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.

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.

There's a lot of hurry up and wait. But it gives you time to write a song.

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.

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.

Music business is hard. It's very difficult. And it's not for everyone. Even if you can sing or even if you can write a song, it takes a lot of determination, it takes some kind of thick skin.

Black people invented jazz. But this story [in La La Land] wasn't ever claiming to be that. It's just a story about two people from one writer's point of view.

If you want the film [La La Land ] to represent all things jazz, it does not. You'll be disappointed by that. But, if you just see it as one guy's point of view, one filmmaker's point of view, and one story among many stories that can be told about jazz, then it's not as much of an issue.

For me there's insecurity when you're releasing an album because you spend all of this time working on that one thing and then once it's done, it's done. After you put it out there to the public you never know which songs are going to work or even if the album is going to work as a whole so there is a little bit of nervousness around predicting what the numbers will be and if it's going to be well-received.

The weirdest thing about Hillary Clinton's email 'scandal' is finding out some of our senators still don't use email.

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.

Music wasn't forced on me [in my childhood]. It was something I wanted to do. And ever since, I've never stopped, I've never stopped playing music.

Some people, you know, should just go to college and do what they do and have a great job and not worry about trying to be famous as a singer. It's not for everyone.

Some of them [family names] have sentimental value for some reason or another, some of them just sound beautiful. Some of them are because of people that are meaningful to us in our lives. So it's hard to say which one we'll pick. Sometimes they say you have to see the child before you decide. So maybe when we see her we'll make a last-second decision.

I thought it would be funny to take a photo in the White House bathroom, I take pictures everywhere I go, but I don't think I can top that one.

You believe in equality for women and men. And that means that, not only do you believe in it kind of in the abstract but you actively think people should seek it when it comes to the way you hire people, the way you compensate people, the way you treat women and men in professional settings and school, whatever the case, giving them equal opportunities without disadvantaging them because of their, for the fact that they're women. And to me that's what it means for me to be a feminist. I don't think it's that controversial.

I don't really marinate in anybody's album because I don't really want to sound like anybody else when I put my album out. So I'd rather not even be tempted to listen to a bunch of other stuff with any degree of emersion in it, cause I just don't want to sound like anything else, so I kinda focus on my own music.

I think it's a bit of a myth that black Americans need one leader. We're not a monolith. And now that legal segregation and discrimination has been pretty much abolished there isn't the sort of universal mandate that a black leader would have. Black folks live in a wide variety of social situations right now.

If I collaborate with people, ideas...they take interesting turns and twists, and I'm excited for that and that process and excited to see what we come up with.

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.

I guess a lot of times pressure is put on something after it becomes big.

Hip-hop and R&B are especially fertile bases of collaboration. It always makes good records and good music.

Music was my life...It was everything to me, even though I was in school majoring in English. I was still very focused on music and always finding ways to perform, so that was what set me up to want to become a recording artist.

I hear melodies and hooks all day. I've always been that way, since I was a kid.

I think people relate to the music because I have a sense of empathy, and I think I have a good understanding about relationships, and I talk about them in a real, honest way

I've written good love songs when I have been in love and I've written good love songs when I haven't.

I wrote the song "Show Me" as a prayer to God asking simple, honest questions about life and death and why there is so much suffering in the world. As I grew with the song I realized I shouldn't limit these questions solely to God; I should ask those questions of others and of myself.

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.

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

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

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.

I'm pretty adventurous with food, so I'm not afraid to try anything.

It's important for us to fight for certain changes that need to happen. And one of those issues that I really care about is education. But also another one is incarceration.

Women are dealing with the same thing: they're dealing with expectations about how they're supposed to look and how they're supposed to interact with men. I think we're all trying to figure it all out, especially when we're teenagers, but I think the key is to listen and empathize with one another.

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

People see me as pretty low key in a lot of ways. And for me, like, even choosing to be John Legend and to be who I am as a star, as an artist, it's a risk 'cause I - you know, I graduated from college and worked as a management consultant, and I could have had this very kind of buttoned-up life and worn suits to work every day.

Kind of the critical acclaim of this movie [La La Land] is that it's striking a chord with the public in a way that has been really beautiful and powerful.

If a few people decide not to buy my album it's really not going to change my life that much.