Top 66 Alicia Keys Quotes

Things can be really empty in this world, and I don’t just mean the music world. It can become a very meaningless place if you don’t really understand: ‘who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing?’ To feel fulfilment and have a deeper level of understanding, personally, that is the most important thing.

I was worried that one day, 40 years from now, I would look back and wouldn’t be able to remember the details of my life, so I’ve written them all down.

Maturity and experience are part of my liberation.

I was tired and I had overworked myself and burnt myself out. So I went to Egypt by myself. When I saw what was built there, it made me understand how powerful we are, that we can create anything. And I felt like I needed to create things that were timeless too.

To be able to help a 13-year-old kid from the Bronx follow her dreams just by letting her know she’s not forgotten in this crazy world – that’s why I got involved with Frum Tha Ground Up.

We are all one. We’re not as separate as we oftentimes think.

I grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood.

When I’m on stage, my interaction with the audience is something that really makes me come alive. It’s a feeling like no other. The energy of the crowd fuels something new inside.

I love children and I love family and I love that interaction. Because I had a really close relationship with my mother, I understand that deep powerful love, and it’s so beautiful. To be a mother to a child is the most brilliant gift; it’s gorgeous.

The desire to play has always been in me. I remember my first experience at about four or five of really dying to sing and dying to play that came from no one telling me to do so.

People don’t expect me to be as funny as I am.

I love Bono. I really respect what he has done for Africa and how he has used his fame to do good in the world. I hope I can do half as much in my life.

If I want to be alone, some place I can write, I can read, I can pray, I can cry, I can do whatever I want – I go to the bathroom.

Sometimes I’ve gotten photographs back and people have literally shaven off pieces of me, and I tell them to put it back.

You’ve got to love what’s yours.

When I was a kid, I’d practise Chopin on piano – and I love Chopin! He’s my dawg! Then I’d go out on the stoop and blast the radio. I’m from New York, the concrete jungle. Hip-hop influenced me from day one.

I always want to stay focused on who I am, even as I’m discovering who I am.

Most times, your blessings are also your curses. And for me, I have this ability to express myself so clearly with pen and paper, but when it comes to expressing myself verbally, I put up a big wall.

I’ve always valued the input of the people I love. So in the past, whenever I’d make a decision – what to wear to an event, whether to pursue a job opportunity – I’d consult those closest to me, like my mother, husband, or manager.

When I was younger, my mother and I, we’d have these crazy, crazy fights. Everyone would storm out mad, and the only way that I’d be able to express myself was to write her. We would write letters back and forth for days. When I’m writing, I feel uninterrupted. I write what I’m going through and how I see it.

I love the written word so much, I know it’s gonna flow naturally.

I have big everything on the bottom, but I love my legs. You’ve got to love what’s yours.

The last thing I want is to walk into my house after a long day and see all the Grammys and awards. It would make me feel weird.

Not because I’m trying to be fabulous, but I love those big crazy Jackie O shades.

I definitely want to act, but I also want to score movies, and I have this idea to fuse classical music with other styles that would give it a different perception.

I’m the cofounder of Keep a Child Alive. We provide medicine for families affected by HIV and AIDS in places like Africa and India.

I’ve always been very private, maybe because I discovered my mother, who is a wonderful lady, is very emotional.

I am able to hang with the hardest, the baddest, the worst, and I’m able to hang with the most proper and be at ease. I’m able to hang with any skin colour, any belief. I just fit in everywhere.

Soul music is timeless.

I know people who’ve gone to jail. It don’t mean you stop loving them! They deservin’ love just as much in there, and maybe they needin’ it more.

When I first started getting into the business, a young woman in a music game that was mostly men, I did feel inadequate.

I feel the presence of a higher power. I believe that what you give is what you get. It’s universal law. I believe in the power of prayer and of words. I’ve learned that when you predict that negative things will happen, they do.

I see what happens when one gets very attached to material things. That’s just not what my life is.

My mom is definitely my rock.

It’s not until I hear songs that I’ve done, that I realize how much of an inspiration music from the ’60s and ’70s has been.

When you’re talented, you’re talented.

I promised myself that I’d never actually admit to listening to ‘New Kids on the Block.’

I’m inspired by artists and musicians. There are so many wonderful and talented people in the world. I love discovering new music, new writers, or new art.

Some of the greatest artists did their best work when they got political.

I love my heritage!

The element of fire to me is very powerful because of what it symbolizes, how it symbolizes a strength. It symbolizes something that’s unstoppable. You can’t get through it, you know.

I really appreciate Frank Ocean’s lyrical style, I appreciate the way that he can kind of draw you into this personal space, but it’s still lyrical. It’s almost poetic, in a way, but it’s very personal at the same time.

I grew up around the theatre. My mother is an actress. I would fall asleep on tons of theatre chairs. It’s in my blood; it’s in my spirit and my fabric of who I am.

If I didn’t love it, I would not record it.

I feel like B sides are always better, no matter whose record it is.

I don’t dream – only if I’m uncomfortable or I’m going through something.

Music is funny. I shouldn’t even ever talk about music, because you can have all the ideas in your head, and it never goes exactly the way that you think it’s gonna go.

I love my heritage! I have my mother, who is an Irish-Italian, and my father who is African, so I have the taste buds of an Italian and the spice of an African.

I’m a very caring person.

We have the potential to help people out of poverty, out of disease, out of slavery and out of conflict. Too often, we turn the other way because we think there’s nothing we can do.

Failure isn’t an option. I’ve erased the word ‘fear’ from my vocabulary, and I think when you erase fear, you can’t fail.

Stevie Wonder’s records introduced me to ’70s soul when I was 12 or 13.

I feel more like I’m a person who has so much to offer in different capacities that it would be a danger for me not to give myself a chance to spread my wings in all different directions.

When I had nothing else, I had my mother and the piano. And you know what? They were all I needed.

I don’t have a ton of friends, but the friends I have are great ones. I don’t have huge family, but the family I have is a great one.

I have this vintage Harley-Davidson motorcycle jacket. When I put it on, it has this supercool feeling to it.

I’ve always been strong-minded, but I wonder.

I have solid decent people around me, and I believe that is all it is, because you will get destroyed if you have people bringing you down.

There’s too much darkness in the world. Everywhere you turn, someone is tryin’ to tear someone down in some way; everywhere you go, there’s a feeling of inadequacy, or a feeling that you’re not good enough. I want to bring a certain light to the world.

I really like to live my life in a low-key fashion.

I’m a very positive person, but this whole concept of having to always be nice, always smiling, always happy, that’s not real. It was like I was wearing a mask. I was becoming this perfectly chiselled sculpture, and that was bad. That took a long time to understand.

I believe in the limitlessness of humans. We’re capable of incredible things. At times, that realization is frightening.

My mixed-race background made me a broad person, able to relate to different cultures. But any woman of colour, even a mixed colour, is seen as black in America. So that’s how I regard myself.

I have my mother who is an Irish-Italian, and my father who is African, so I have the taste buds of an Italian and the spice of an African.

I’m not ashamed of what I am and that I have curves and that I’m thick. I like my body.

I’ve stepped more into my womanhood, I’m a mother now, I’m having a beautiful relationship as a wife and as a friend.