Alicia Keys

“Yes I was burned but I called it a lesson learned. Mistake overturned so I call it a lesson learned. My soul has returned so I call it a lesson learned...another lesson learned”

“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.”

“People don't expect me to be as funny as I am.”

“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.”

“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.”

“When you're talented, you're talented.”

“I love the written word so much, I know it's gonna flow naturally.”

“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.”

“I just wanted to be who I was, which was like so many other girls I knew. We grew up in the city, had a hard edge and obstacles to overcome, but we were still young and beautiful. I didn't want to be all dressed up, all made up - I wanted to be myself, which hadn't been done before.”

“For me, doing a show, the excitement of singing live, and the possibility that you're not gonna be perfect - that's the thrill of it.”

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

“Falling down ain't falling down,If you don't cry when you hit the floor,It's called the past cause I'm getting past,And I ain't nothing like I was before,You ought to see me now”

“It's when we become afraid of everything and worried about everything that you are never going to reach your highest potential.”

“I promised myself that I'd never actually admit to listening to 'New Kids on the Block.'”

“When I was first learning songs, I'd have a favorite song, and I'd take the chords and twist them around. I'd learn the chords and then play them backward. That was my first experimenting with writing a song.”

“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.”

“I love my own music.”

“My parents weren't married. It wasn't like my dad up and left. I maintained a steady relationship with my grandparents. My dad's mother is my nana, and I'm closer to her than almost anybody in this world.”

“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.”

“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.”