John Legend Quotes

As a nation - and as a world - we need more truth.

In the 1970s, for all the Stevie Wonders, I'm sure there were five artists that were making forgettable music.

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

My dad liked a lot of Motown, but I didn't listen to it until my teenage years.

The best training is to play by ear: trial by fire.

You can always find a stray negative comment on the Internet. It's like everybody loves to put negative comments on the Internet under the cloak of anonymity.

In my neighborhood in Springfield, Ohio, there were a lot of young kids. We all played tackle football after school, but I knew very early on that I was not an athlete.

The most important thing about technology is that it can seamlessly work its way into your routine and your life.

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

For me, no matter how much money you want to make off of singing, no matter what kind of fame you want to make, achieve, the most important thing to me is making music that you're proud of, making music that comes from you, comes from an authentic place in you.

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.

Love your curves and all your edges All your perfect imperfections

Critics like to describe and categorize things, and categories often have a way of limiting people.

I only want to be associated with music that is high quality. That's my main criteria.

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.

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

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.

To have the chance to see your music be elevated and to have almost universally positive response to that music, makes me feel better every day. I feel more confident and inspired, and that's fun.

I care more about the fans in general, just making sure they enjoy what I do. And then also I kind of had this kind of ideal of the kind of music I want to make and what I'm aiming for kind of creatively and just the quality of the music that I'm trying to make. And I have that in my head.

The most I ever spent on technology is building a studio - I built one at home in Los Angeles. I can't tell you how much exactly, but the whole process is very expensive.

At the end of the day, there's only a few major stars in the music business, and then there's all these people that are aspiring to be that.

You learn so much from taking chances, whether they work out or not. Either way, you can grow from the experience and become stronger and smarter.

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

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.

A just society is not one built on fear or repression or vengeance or exclusion, but one built on love. Love for our families. Love for our neighbors. Love for the least among us. Love for those who look different or worship differently. Love for those we don't even know.

Fleeting joy and fading ecstasy, here it goes again, oh,
Sneaking fruit from the forbidden tree, sweet taste of sin

Experience is a great teacher.

I do believe that part of us ending racism is us seeing each other's humanity and learning to love each other, even if we look different or worship differently or live differently.

There's something in your heart
And it's in your eyes
It's the fire, inside you
Let it burn
You don't say, "Good luck"
You say, "Don't give up"
It's the fire, inside you
Let it burn

I don't actually go to a lot of games because I think football on TV is better. Even though I'm pretty busy, I watch 90 percent of Ohio State's games.

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

I just want it to be timeless and timely at the same time.

Well, what's interesting, I try not to think about the radio when I'm writing a song. I want people to love the song, and that means it might not be exactly thinking about the radio, but it's thinking about your audience and saying, 'I want people to like this song after it's done.'

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.

It's really about making the best music you can make. It's really about working hard.

The struggle for freedom and justice is now.

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.

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

So I've got a new friend
I wish I could forget you
But I miss you, wanna kiss you again
She's like you, but she's not you, gotta find you again

I think writers are prone to hyperbole sometimes.

We're just ordinary people. We don't know which way to go.

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.

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

Every artist wants some sort of feedback, because you make this music and you hope people love it and you want to hear if they love it and what they love about it, what their favorite song is, what they think the next single should be. I like to hear those things.

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.

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?

Artists in general never stay in the same place, we keep growing. It's still you, you still have that core that you always had, but you work with new people and hear new things.

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.

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.

Sometimes I start just on the piano with a melody or musical idea that kind of leads me to certain lyrics.

At work, you want to stand out but not in extra-funky ways. At the core, it's about dressing for girls - who are most of my fans - and you want to dress up for them. You just want to feel like you're on top of your game.

The best way to fight poverty is to empower people through access to quality education

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

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.

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.

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

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.

You see all these things that make you feel desperate or sad, but you realize changes can be made, and it doesn't take a lot of money on our part to make a change in people's lives.

Damn, I love you, but this is crazy,
I have to fight you almost daily,
We break up so fast,
And we, we make up so passionately,
Why can't we just trust each?
You can't hate me and be my lover,
Passion ends, and pains begins, I come back ...

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

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

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

The biggest weapon is to stay peaceful

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

Sometimes there's that perfect moment when the crowd, the music, the energy of the room come together in a way that brings me to tears.

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.

I played classical as a kid.

Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

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

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.

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.

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.

I like cool jackets - a nice fall or winter coat. You can get a lot of use out of it, and you'll wear it frequently, so it can really set the tone of your uniform for the season.

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.

We have a serious problem with incarceration in this country. It's destroying families, it's destroying communities and we're the most incarcerated country in the world, and when you look deeper and look at the reasons we got to this place, we as a society made some choices politically and legislatively, culturally to deal with poverty, deal with mental illness in a certain way and that way usually involves using incarceration.

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.

My first attempt at a kiss was in fifth grade, but it didn't go so well. Later, I used Boyz II Men and Jodeci songs to come on to girls. I had more success.

I want you to live the best life you can. You can be world-changers.. Pursue this life of love with focus and passion and ambition and courage. Give it your all. And that will be your path to true success.

My family is very musical, I was surrounded by it. And from four years old I was the one that asked my mother could I take piano lessons.It wasn't forced on me. It was something I wanted to do. And ever since, I've never stopped, I've never stopped playing music. I never went through a period where I didn't want to do it.

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.

It's an artist's duty to reflect the times in which we live.

The main focus for me is not trying to find duet partners. It's about just making great songs. I want most of my album to be in my voice, because it's my point of view.

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.

I feel like my job is to make impact, spread love, tell great stories, inspire people, that's what I am going to do.

We weren't allowed to have secular music in the house growing up. I was home-schooled, and gospel was the only choice we had.

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 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.

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

I don't feel like that many musicians are competitive with each other.