Ne-Yo Quotes

If everyone in the music business were brutally honest about what their intentions were then you could sort things out, but it's all smoke and mirrors.

The thing that I've learned, not just from writing comics but also from writing television programs like 'Law & Order,' is that you can fool some of the people some of the time - but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

I'm just not into the shady side of the music industry. Give credit where credit's due.

Record labels and producers are not looking to change you: they are looking to make a star. And what they might think is a star may not be you.

'Magic' is a word that's too often misused in the record industry.

You cannot fool an audience.

Honesty is often the best policy, but sometimes the appearance of it is worth six of it.

Authenticity resonates with people. The industry can be very misleading and is built to make people believe what they see. But people aren't dumb they can see through that and I think real music and real people resonate.

Reality is easy. It's deception that's the hard work.

When no one's buying your records, it's easy to justify selling a song. But once you start selling records, you can't really justify having two songs in Cadillac commercials. It looks greedy. And it is greedy. This whole music thing should be about music.

Anybody with my background in the airline business who is not deaf is a fraud.

I'm the worst liar in the world.

You can hide so much behind theatrics, and I don't need to do that any more.

I've always operated under the notion that audiences don't always know when they're being lied to, but that they always know when they're being told the truth.

I prefer the honest jargon of reality to the outright lies of books.

Well, you know what they say in Hollywood - the most important thing is being sincere, even if you have to fake it.

I don't think anyone can say I have said one thing in public and done another in private.

If people knew what made hits they'd make more of them, so to have the illusion of control over one's career isn't something I can even pretend to have.

I had business experience. I had made my living designing and building electronic equipment. Basic business was not new to me, but the music business was completely new to me. I knew nothing about distribution, or any of those things.

The way you build trust with your people is by being forthright and clear with them from day one. You may think people are fooled when you tell them what they want to hear. They are not fooled.

You can do any number of things in the music business aside from trying to look like you're 25. To me it's embarrassing.

Kids know when you're pulling a fast one, storywise, and I think that even when they're being entertained, children want to hear the truth, just like adults do.

It's like half the campaign of selling a record is trying to convince people that you're an artist. Well, I am an artist. This is what I do.

For me, the greatest fault would be to tell somebody something I'm not.

One of the worst things you can give to your people is someone you're not.