Alicia Keys Quotes

Freestyling helps me portray the emotion that I'm feeling right there instead of writing it at home and having to add to it.

I do one take; I never overdubbed twice. I know there's stuff that isn't perfect, but it doesn't matter: Nothing is perfect, and there is a magic there that is undeniable because of the fact that we don't care about those things.

Oh, I just sing like I hurt inside.

My voice is unadorned. I don't try for perfection. I try to be honest and truthful and soulful with the voice I have. If I make mistakes in notes, or there are cracks in notes, I don't fix them. That's the way it is.

A lot of my albums that I've done, a lot of the songs have been the first take. It's before you mess with it too much - you can take away all the spontaneity and the emotion of something by trying to make it sound perfect.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

Humans are vulnerable, messy little animals and that's normal. And all I want to do is make a space for that in my films.

But I love singing live. Nothing beats the feeling of going out on stage and going, 'I can really sing.'

This is where you see the truth of entertainment, because it is not edited. You see it on stage as it is happening. Even if we fall down or forget our words, it's a part of live entertainment.

If someone said, 'You can go live in this little town in Costa Rica for a couple of weeks and all you've got to do is sing for us,' I would do that. That's more exciting to me than the prospect of going on some national tour, where you're going to play arenas or sheds every night, because of the crushing repetition of that kind of line.

When I heard Aretha, I could feel her emotional delivery so clearly. It came from down deep within. That's what I wanted to do.

A lot of my albums that I've done, a lot of the songs have been the first take. It's before you mess with it too much - you can take away all the spontaneity and the emotion of something by trying to make it sound perfect.

I really enjoy singing, it's entirely different to acting because I'm just being myself.

Blues was my first love. It was the first thing where I said, 'Oh man, this is the stuff.' It just sounded so raw and honest, gut-bucket honest. From then I started rebelling.

When you raise your voice in song to express what's going on deep inside of you, I think people just react to that because it's so truthful. It's so raw.

Singing from the heart is my only goal.

When an actor sings a song, he will be able to bring forth the emotion in it much better than a playback singer.

I like a performance, a live performance, so I like little mistakes because that's what makes perfect - the mistakes.

That's why people come to live music, right? To see something go wrong, something human, something vulnerable.

Growing up, I was listening to a ton of Motown music, Otis Redding, Aretha, and then there was the Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin. These were all people that I felt as though they truly felt every single lyric they said, and they weren't afraid of imperfection.

I think when a musician loses their inhibition and dives deep into their soul, that's a prayer. It's so powerful that you will touch people whether it's good or bad.

There's something about the first time an actor runs the material over his or her face you know when they kind of run it through their eyes and you see the thing and there is little imperfections in it and not every line is delivered perfectly, and it doesn't have that mechanical feeling.

Nothing stops the forward march of any creative endeavor like the need to do it absolutely perfectly. And who is to judge what is 'perfect' anyway? What I have judged full of flaws so many others have called terrific. Maybe the definition of Perfection is something that actually gets done.

The soul of music slumbers in the shell Till waked and kindled by the master's spell; And feeling hearts, touch them but rightly, pour A thousand melodies unheard before!

Free men are aware of the imperfection inherent in human affairs, and they are willing to fight and die for that which is not perfect.