John Legend Quotes - Page 2

The struggle for freedom and justice is now.

Why wouldn't I help? What good reason do I have as a human being with power and a sense of empathy and morality, why wouldn't I do something?

It's really about making the best music you can make. It's really about working hard.

I only want to be associated with music that is high quality. That's my main criteria.

There's a certain confidence that comes with being sure about the way the world works.

Mass incarceration is a policy that's kind of built up over the last four decades and it's destroyed families and communities, and something we need to change. And it's fallen disproportionally on black and brown communities, especially black communities, and it's kind of a manifestation of structural racism.

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last. Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.

Music business is not for everyone. But if you have it in you, you have that passion, if you have that energy in you that you really want to make something creative and make something that's going to impact the world, then go for it, do it and don't let anybody tell you no.

We should care about what is going on in the world.

John legend is a nickname that somebody started calling me a while ago and part of it is 'cos I sound like an old man when I sing.

As a young black boy, it made me proud to see black leaders that did something amazing and made the world change.

Musicians are in-season all the time.

I want to make a better record than I made the last time. I want to grow. I want to discover new things about myself creatively.

You can always find a stray negative comment on the Internet. It's like everybody loves to put negative comments on the Internet under the cloak of anonymity.

​W​e're so used to having everything we want at our fingertips so I think that when things get tough it's ​difficult ​for people to persist through that.

I spent a lot of time, a lot of energy trying to be a better artist and I still [do]. I spend a lot of time focusing on my craft. If you're going to take your passion into something beyond just something for fun on the side, you got to spend a lot of time on it to be great, and then you've got to make smart decisions about who you collaborate with [and] where you live [to] put yourself in the right situations to meet the right people to catch those breaks.

It's not enough to say we need to love each other, you have to go behind that and say we need to change these policies, we need to fight, we need to protest, we need to agitate for change.

No matter how big or successful and famous you become, if you do that, that's the most fulfilling thing, is making music that you love and that you're proud of.

I'm trying to be me and embrace all the parts of me that have grown up, listened to more music and soaked up more influences.

I think you're always policing yourself by trying to do what you think would be "cool" and accepted by other people, until you start to figure out who you really want to be. Growing up is an ongoing push-and-pull of you being yourself and you performing to what society expects you to be.

Sometimes there's that perfect moment when the crowd, the music, the energy of the room come together in a way that brings me to tears.

People tell me all the time that my songs help them express things to loved ones that they may not be able to say themselves.

Artists in general never stay in the same place, we keep growing. It's still you, you still have that core that you always had, but you work with new people and hear new things.

I do believe that part of us ending racism is us seeing each other's humanity and learning to love each other, even if we look different or worship differently or live differently.

Every artist wants some sort of feedback, because you make this music and you hope people love it and you want to hear if they love it and what they love about it, what their favorite song is, what they think the next single should be. I like to hear those things.