A biography for Jose Felicianohasn’t been written yet.
“I didn't have romances when I was in school. Girls didn't want to go out with me because I was blind.”
“Some people wanted me deported - as if you can be deported to Puerto Rico.”
“I don't think Hank Greenberg thought of himself as the first Jewish baseball player - he was a baseball player who happened to be Jewish. I'm an artist who happens to be Latin.”
“My parents did not want us to lose our culture and our language. And that was a good thing.”
“Music. It has always showed me that I could do what the other kids couldn't do. So I will keep playing and singing and entertaining, as long as the good Lord lets me. That is my life.”
“I loved John Lennon, by the way.”
“I got so big in the Latin market, it was a bit like being Elvis Presley. The limousines, the screaming girls - stuff I wasn't used to.”
“I think I am different from most blind people because my agility is not that of a blind person - I don't shuffle my feet when I walk. In fact, I have no, as I call them, 'blindisms.'”
“I felt bad about the controversy because they stopped playing my songs on American radio stations. But there was nothing wrong with what I did. Now everybody sings the national anthem the way they want.”
“It taught the English to speak Spanish and it taught the Spanish to speak English. If we had more songs such as that, it would solve the immigration problem in a hurry. But there can't be another 'Feliz Navidad.'”
“I thought I'd be spending my life making brooms, mops, chairs and things. That's fine for some blind people, but I wanted something more out of life. Music seemed the best way.”
“I write with my brain. I don't need a computer.”
“Playing guitar was a calling, but I never realized that it was going to be a career. It was just something I did out of love.”
“It is always good to make new friends.”
“I truly enjoyed the '60s.”
“I did whole Latin albums and it was like Beatlemania for me in the Latin world, the screaming girls, not being able to leave the hotel, at the airport met by screaming fans. That was something!”
“I'm in a museum. I'm a relic.”
“I didn't write Feliz Navidad to make a lot of money for me.”
“The only thing I can say to the people of Israel is that I love them and I am a strong ally.”
“I was the first artist to put the national anthem on the charts, and I'm thrilled.”