Lionel Richie quotes: the singer-songwriter’s best words.
“The first thing is, you want to love what you’re doing.”
“It’s not where you start. It’s where you end up.”
“If you have anything in the world to give, give it all, because you can’t take it with you.”
“Greatness comes from fear. Fear can either shut us down and we go home, or we fight through it.”
“Talent is a God-given gift and not a category. And out of the box, out of the box is that magical place where talent – true talent – goes to live and thrive and breathe. And may you never give that up as long as you’re in the business.”
“When your past calls, don’t answer. It has nothing new to say.”
“Failure is not an option.”
“People, as critical as it looks, we’re okay. We are in control, whether we feel it or not.”
“In life you must be able to discern between who and what is genuine and artificial. I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I realize that you can’t please everybody all of the time and that sometimes you have to just go for what you know.”
“Taking time to sit back and watch and think about what you’ve seen is important. Traveling did a great deal to me. I found that when I travel and just sit in the corner and watch, a million ideas come to me.”
“Everybody else wants the same thing, in every different language possible, all around the world.”
“I’m friends with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and pay attention to some of the innovations talked about over dinner and lunch. I drive a Tesla and have Solar City products in my home. I’m spending more time vetting investments than melodies.”
“Because so much of my career has been spent on the road, home is truly a retreat for me. It’s a place where I can relax and spend time with my family and friends. I am passionate about bringing my experiences at some of the world’s finest hotels into the fabric and design of my curated home collection so that J. C. Penney customers can make their home a tranquil, luxurious escape, without spending a fortune.”
“This is what I do at home: I’m the guy who, you can’t pick things out for me; I’m going to pick them out for myself – the fabric for the chairs, for the table, the guy who will pick out the linens.”
“Soul is a feeling, not a color.”
“I think the whole world is dying to hear someone say, ‘I love you.’ I think that if I can leave the legacy of love and passion in the world, then I think I’ve done my job in a world that’s getting colder and colder by the day.”
“Today we’ve learned to celebrate mediocrity. Back in the day we had creative artists; today we have created artists.”
“I find myself going out on the road to get my confidence back, because I lose it at home.”
“I always like to challenge myself. I never want to be put into a box.”
“The music business was not safe, but it was fun. It was like falling in love with a woman you know is bad for you, but you love every minute with her, anyway.”
“You cannot beat the feeling of sitting on top of the charts. I had almost forgotten what it feels like… it feels great! It is really a very exciting time and I am enjoying the ride.”
“People have allowed me into their homes, through my words and my music.”
“What I realized was, I was actually feeling things. I am an interpreter of feelings. I make people understand what they feel and what they sometimes find very difficult to say.”
“I just like people. I’ll hold a conversation at a gas station. It’s not about the fame and the fortune, I just like people.”
“Forget about surviving 40 years in the music business. Just surviving 27 years of Nicole Richie has been a struggle-and-a-half, I want to tell you. I stand here as a survivor, I want you to know, for all the parents out there.”
“Kids will keep it real. If I’ve ever had in my life a great anchor, it’s them. They get in your head, ‘Don’t get too famous.’ If you think you’re really famous and think you’re really hip, go hang out with your kids for an afternoon. That’s about as earthbound as it’s going to get.”
“Simplicity is the key to what I do.”
“If you think about the tortoise and the hare, I’m the tortoise. And at some point, I just kind of crawl up the back of the door and go, ‘I think I won.'”
“Thanks for helping me celebrate all the songs they told me would ruin my career.”
“‘Let the music play on’ would be my legacy.”
“That I was absolutely a minister of love and a hopeless romantic and if I did nothing else in the world but bring a melody to the joys of the world and around the world – that’s all I’m here for.”
“I’m going to let the secret out of the bag. This is my new pastime. I had a choice: do I play tennis on the weekends or do I call up my tech friends and say, ‘What’s new?’ Both Yuri Milner and Elon Musk are friends. Yuri is my entrée. Yuri is the one who got me with the bug. I find that when I speak to him he has one more fascinating thing to tell me after another. Silicon Valley and its innovation is moving here. That innovation is a new wave of creativity. And I can’t help but want to be a part of that future.”
“My job is very simple, I’m here to play the hits all night long.”
