Quotes from Brian McKnight

I'm probably the furthest from being romantic that you've ever seen; I'm not even close to being romantic in any way until I have to be.

I was probably six years old when I first sang before an audience.

I keep these songs in my head until I get behind the microphone. I never spend more than 30 or 40 minutes singing the vocal or it will sound mechanical. There are always mistakes, but it's about feeling more than being perfect.

People now have been conditioned to believe they should only buy one song at a time, that nobody can make an entire record that would merit you paying, you know, $7, $8, $10 when CDs in the '90s were $18, $19 and people bought millions and millions and millions of them.

I was brought up to be a gentleman. That means you know how to walk, talk and dress the part.

I think they can co-exist. You don't have to put one down for another. I've been bitten by the acting bug, and where it takes me, it won't take away from the music.

I kind of hate the fact that people are always trying to put you into a category. I hate walls, and I hate boundaries. I don't like that. I listen to everything.

A fine timepiece is part of dressing like a gentleman. When I first made a little money, I bought my first watch which was a Rolex Daytona. It was just one of those things that said I was successful.

I'm creating music - it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it.

I am just like all the jerks and idiots you know. I am just a guy that watches sports all day.

I am just a guy that watches sports all day.

When it's your chance to step up to the plate, just hit it out of the park, and everybody will forget about everything that came before.

I just want people to take a step back, take a deep breath and actually look at something with a different perspective. But most people will never do that.

I kinda went back to that period between '88 and '94 where I felt like I was the most creative, without being hindered by powers that be. I was no longer going to try to hinder myself to what I thought was going to be on the radio.

I'm not thinking about what needs to be on the radio. I'm not thinking about anything other than - I'm just going to let this music come out of me and not have any sort of preconceived notion of what I should do. I'm just going to do it.

Whenever I fill out the job description I put 'songwriter', never 'singer' or 'artist.' Singers come and go.

Most of the stuff I learned to play, I learned in high school. I had a band in high school, a jazz-fusion thing, and I was the keyboard player. I was interested in how the instruments worked and the theory behind playing with them.

He knows I rip him off every day. He's the godfather for me. Nobody can say they aren't influenced by what Stevie Wonder has done.

I'm not like a legend that - so I'm sort of in the middle in this sort of gray area where, you know, I'm creating music, and I'm not saying there isn't an audience, because there is; because all of those people go out and spend $80 to $150 on a concert ticket.

I grew up in a time where anything was possible.

You know, most of my career I wrote about moments in time. All of us have felt one thing or another and it didn't last very long. Now I'm drawing from real experience. It's a huge difference.

Lionel Richie told me forget about the critics. But if you come back with hit after hit, you don't have to worry about anything.

There's only one thing that everyone in this world has in common: whether you want to love somebody and you want to be loved in return.

People don't like when you point out to them and remind them that they're not very smart.