I did it to myself. It wasnt society… it wasnt a pusher, it wasnt being blind or being black or being poor. It was all my doing. – Ray Charles
Learning to read music in Braille and play by ear helped me develop a damn good memory. – Ray Charles
My music had roots which Id dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil. – Ray Charles
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
I had the closest thing I have ever had to an out-of-body experience lying in bed one morning. I turned on the Today programme and item four on the news was: The shadow chancellor has ruled himself out of the leadership. I lay there thinking thats interesting, then I realised it was me. – George Osborne
Every man should have a library. The works of the grandest masters of literature may now be procured at prices that place them within the reach almost of the very poorest, and we may all put Parnassian singing birds into our chambers to cheer us with the sweetness of their songs. – William E.A. Axon, October 1867