Ricky Skaggs Quotes

I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician.

I want to still be singing at 70 years old. I want to be open to the dreams I haven't even dreamed up.

It was a really strange way that I came into music. Once I gave voice to it, the pit of emotions that I guess I knew was inside of me for a long time, the stream never really stopped.

I realized music is the most important thing to me and I love writing songs, and I think I had more to say in life.

I think maybe one day I'll go back to music. I don't know. I don't know if sometimes you lose a passion or you don't lose it, it becomes more personal and less about sharing it with everyone.

Writing music is just something that I was born to do.

But I really love music, and having a creative outlet is really the best thing you can do for yourself.

Music's always been a huge part of my life, and my first record came out in 1981.

If you give a good performance, something that gets some feeling across to people, that's such a rare gift. It's underestimated at this point in history, when the music biz is inevitably turning into a kind of politics.

Music is something that should speak for itself, straight from the heart. It took me a long time to understand that.

I've been working on my own music. I've been writing an album, stuff that's kind of personal to my own life.

I really think I've found me finally in the music. You know, I had put an album out before, 'Embrace Me,' and it's been seven years since that. So I was discovering who I was. And I still am discovering, but I think now I know a little bit more of who I am. So that's what's pushing me.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

Music is not a profession. Music is a way of life - one that requires much professionalism.

Every movie you do, you find something in yourself that you probably didn't know that you had, and a director will find something in you that you can nurture and find and bring for the next one.

I'd never taken a job purely for money - I felt that would kill me - but I was afraid that I was heading that way. Then, my brother passing away was the final thing that kicked me over. It reminded me that life is short, and you'd better do what you want while you have a chance.

The roles I think about and can't stop thinking about - on the subway, when I'm riding my bike, when I'm running - are the things I connect to.

I have no desire to write fiction. I did what I did, and it's done. There's more to life than writing and publishing fiction. There is another way entirely, amazed as I am to discover it at this late date.

I've been singing since I was five. It's my identity.

I cannot write poetically, for I am no poet. I cannot make fine artistic phrases that cast light and shadow, for I am no painter. I can neither by signs nor by pantomime express my thoughts and feelings, for I am no dancer; but I can by tones, for I am a musician.

Genuinely, the first gig I did when I was 18, it felt like the world shifted. I realised that I had stumbled upon a mechanism through which you could view life.

My work is more to me than just music.

First, I started with music singing, writing songs, playing music. Later, I got into acting. I'm not a brilliant musician or a brilliant actor. But, to me, they're still great vehicles for expression.

Acting, I get to explore other people and other characters; with music, I get to express and explore myself.

Maybe I was blessed that my main drive was purely selfish. I needed to make something, make my life better, wider, have poetry in my life, have something that gives me hope on an everyday basis. That was my main drive all along, really.