Quotes by Bonnie Raitt - Page 3 | QuoteForever

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Life is simple yet complex, in the complexity we realize everything is simple for we create our own happiness, our own sadness & our own destiny by not making a choice you have chosen so face life with courage and faith in yourself.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
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I was always drawn to the blues. Alberta Hunter at the Cookery was a life-changing experience. I only wanted to get enriched as a performer as I got older, to have an audience which got older, too, and would come to see me when I'm 80.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Experience
Audience
Cookery
Life Changing
Wanted
Always Me See
Experience Always Me
Blues
Drawn
Enriched
Older
Hunter
Performer
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I do feel my loved ones that have passed on; I feel them looking over my shoulder... So yeah, that's pretty profound, when you're not expecting it, you didn't particularly believe in it and then it just sort of happens too often to ignore.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Expecting
Loved Ones
Profound
Ignore
Passed
Shoulder
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I'm honored when young people say they've gone to school on slide guitar with my records. But people get their influence from my live shows and records and YouTube, not me personally. I walk around with a hat on. People don't know it's me.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Guitar
Honored
People
School
Youtube
Hat
Live Shows
People Say
Slide
Young People
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I don't know if I'm a heroine; I'm just somebody that can cheer the troops by singing to folks, and have receptions after the show, and tithe a dollar of every ticket sale for all kinds of different great charities and social action groups.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Cheer
Groups
Singing
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I think it's our job to write about what we're going through at the moment, and being 41, I'm not going to write about the same things I wrote about at 20. I don't think artists should be farmed out to pasture just because they're in rock n' roll.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Pasture
Same Things
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The connection between toxicity and cancer and safe air and water and food, all of that was important all along, as were women's and human rights issues, but the nuke issue and the safe energy movement became really important to me in the mid-'70s.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Air
Cancer
Rights
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I'm certain that it was an incredible gift for me to not only be friends with some of the greatest blues people who've ever lived, but to learn how they played, how they sang, how they lived their lives, ran their marriages, and talked to their kids.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Kids
Incredibles
People
Ran
Gift Me People
Blues
Me Gift People
Marriages
Sang
Talked
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People say, 'Gee, you don't really do political music.' Well, I sing a lot of songs about how men and women and lovers treat each other, and none of us want to be talked down to or belittled or ignored or disrespected... So I'm proud to be a feminist.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Disrespected
Ignored
Lovers
Men And Women
Political
Proud
Men Women Music
Gee
Women Men Music
None
People Say
Sing
Talked
Treat
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The women's movement resurgence of standing up for so many things that were kind of sleepy there for a decade or so, there's been a reawakening and I think the consciousness movement in general is dovetailing with a lot of recovery and self-empowerment.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Recovery
Self
Thinking
Copy Quote
Nobody went out to pasture, and a lot of people are doing their best work. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and Sting are at the top of their game. I mean, Tony Bennett is the coolest guy I ever met! We have to figure out how to break out of this age ghetto.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Games
Ghetto
Mean
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When you find a song that you love, you just have to do it - why would I try to match it? When I wrote more of the songs in the '90s - 'Nick of Time' and other songs I was surprised I came up with - it was because nobody else was saying what I wanted to say.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Love You
Love Time Song
Match
Nick
Nobody Else
Surprised
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The generation I grew up in was the beginning of "stand up for yourself," whether being a singer-songwriter or a feminist. In my college years, the feminist movement was really coming to fore, so we wouldn't have put up with guys treating us less than equal.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
College
Feminist
Years
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Elvis might have compromised his musical style a bit towards the end, but that doesn't mean that artists from the rock n' roll/folk-roots culture - of which he was not really a part - shouldn't get better as they get older, like the great jazz or blues artists.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Artist
Jazz
Mean
Rocks
Blues
Compromised
Elvis
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One of the biggest obstacles I've overcome in my life was thinking I didn't deserve to be successful. Artistically I'm not as much of a heavyweight as someone like Paul Simon or Joni Mitchell, because I'm not a creator of original music, and I worried about that for years.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Creator
Deserve
Obstacles
Original Music
Successful
Thinking
Worried
Years
Overcome
Life Music Thinking
Biggest
Original
Heavyweight
Joni Mitchell
Mitchell
Paul
Paul Simon
Simon
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The challenge of course is in sobriety and that's been the blessing, to realize, to take accountability for the ways that your own thinking impacts your happiness, and your serenity, and your ability to be a productive and a loving, giving member of your family and society.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Blessing
Impact
Thinking
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I tend to be freer on the piano. I never took guitar lessons, so my reach exceeds my grasp - what I hear in my head I don't always know how to play. But I love to play over something else. I'm not a self-starter. I get kind of bored with the same three folk chords that I know.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Bored
Chords
Lessons
Love Guitar Always
Folk
Freer
Grasp
Guitar Lessons
Something Else
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Sometimes I don't go into the studio for quite a while because I haven't found enough good songs. They have to have a certain caliber and connect with me because I'm going to be playing them for the rest of my life. I start off with a circle of friends whose songs I love anyway.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Caliber
Life Love Good
Anyway
Circle
Connect
Quite A While
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In 1967 I entered Harvard as a freshman, confident - in the way that only 17-year-olds are - that I could change the world. My major was African Studies, and my plan was to travel to Tanzania, where President Julius Nyerere was creating a government based on democracy and socialism.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Government
Travel
Creating
Democracy
Freshman
Harvard
Julius
President
Socialism
Years
African
Based
Confident
Change The World
Could
Entered
Major
Plan
Studies
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I think we have responsibilities to be active in the things we believe in, regardless of what our job is. At least in my lifetime, there has been a tremendous combining of activism and music, that came up in the era of Pete Seeger and the Weavers and Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and Peter Paul & Mary.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Jobs
Active
Believe
Combining
Dylan
Lifetime
Mary
Peter
Responsibility
Bob Dylan
Tremendous
Joan
Paul
Regardless
Responsibilities
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I'm sure I would have been considered a more significant artist if I was a singer-songwriter. It's just not the way I roll. I love being a curator and a musicologist. People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that's partly my job this time around.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Jobs
Artist
Curator
Letters
Significant
Writing
Love Time Me
Considered
Turning
Fred
Singer Songwriter
Partly
Thank
Wallace
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The fact is that this conversation is going on at every level at every age, we're all going, "God, what a jerk I've been," "How could I have married that guy?" or "How could I have done this or that?" With time, this is the gift of being older, that you get to look back and say, "It wasn't all about them."
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Age
Guy
Looks
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Quakers are known for wanting to give back. Ban the bomb and the civil rights movement and the native American struggle for justice - those things were very, very front-burner in my childhood, as were the ideas of working for peace and if you have more than you need, then you share it with people who don't.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Childhood
Civil Rights
Civil Rights Movement
Movement
Native
Native American
Rights
Share
Struggle
Ban
Bomb
Civil
Quakers
Rights Movement
Wanting
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Leading a band and producing yourself and picking cool tunes and putting a show together takes a lot of thought, and a certain amount of courage. In my early twenties, if I wasn't getting good enough at it, then people would not come and see me. Anybody who has lasted this long - I hope we get better with age.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Age
Long
People
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There's lots of flaws and frailties and cracks in the armor, and nobody wants to put themselves out there as some kind of Joan of Arc because none of us can live up to that, but I'm grateful to be a role model and be respected because I have a whole slew of people, men and women, that I feel the same way about.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Men
Grateful
People
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I'm just glad that I'm the musical equivalent of a character actress, because blues singers can keep singing and having an audience at 35, and someone like Madonna's gonna have to find something else to do, 'cos I don't care how pointy those bras are that she wears, they're still gonna look a little odd when she's 55!
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Bras
Glad
Odd
Singers
Blues
Character Actress
Equivalent
Madonna
Something Else
Wears
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I have been really heartened by how much coverage there has been about inequality of pay across the board, between the entertainment industry and almost every industry worldwide. And just the problem of young women not getting an education, not being able to have an equal position in the cultures all around the world.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Boards
Culture
World
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Nobody taught me to play bottleneck. I just saw it and taught myself. I got an old bottle and steamed the label off, put it on the wrong finger, I basically did everything wrong until I met some of the Blues legends early in my career who taught me another way. I didn't have anyone to tell me women didn't play bottleneck.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Another Way
Legends
Taught
Women Myself Me
Anyone
Basically
Nobody
Blues
Bottle
Career
Wrong
Early
Finger
Saw
Label
Met
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Distribution has really changed. You can make a record with a laptop in the morning and have it up on YouTube in the afternoon and be a star overnight. The talent on YouTube is incredible, and it can spread like wildfire. The downside is that it's very hard to convince the younger generation that they should pay for music.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Morning
Afternoon
Changed
Convince
Distribution
Generations
Pay
Spread
Stars
Talent
Younger Generation
Younger
Star
Downside
Generation
Record
Laptop
Overnight
Wildfire
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The anti-nuke movement has important and far-reaching implications for grassroots organizing. It can unite kids and musicians, everybody, whether they're leftist or rightist, or radical, or Republican, because energy is energy. But in fact, it is a real political struggle - it shows people that it's big business against the people.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Kids
Big Business
Energy
Grassroots
Implications
Movement
People
Radical
Real
Struggle
Organizing
In Fact
Leftist
Musicians
Unite
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How unthinkable that, in a country of such bursting plenty, so many people are facing ongoing hunger and poverty. If we are truly each other's keepers, let's support school lunches, food stamps, neighborhood garden projects, and so many other wonderful programs working to put an end to this cruel and needless blight once and for all.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Country
Garden
School
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Im happy to say that at 62, I think Ive reached that point where stuff doesnt bother me as much, and my gratitude level has gone way up, especially having gone through the loss that Ive had, and losing so many of the great artists that I was close to. They taught me how to see it with a grain of salt and a lot of humor and perspective.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Artist
Gratitude
Loss
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I'm happy to say that at 62, I think I've reached that point where stuff doesn't bother me as much, and my gratitude level has gone way up, especially having gone through the loss that I've had, and losing so many of the great artists that I was close to. They taught me how to see it with a grain of salt and a lot of humor and perspective.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Bother
Grain
Losing
Perspective
Salt
Humor Great Me
Reached
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Especially girls, but any kids exposed to music programs and arts programs do much better on their tests. They have a better chance of going to college. They can focus better. You know, we're not just automatons learning how to work machines and do engineering and math and science. All of that's great, but you've got to build a whole person.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Engineering
Exposed
Machines
Math
Math And Science
Arts
Better Chance
Programs
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Those of us with a microphone who are blessed with the gift of being in the public eye have a special opportunity to give voice to all those groups whose activism is sometimes ignored or put on the back pages with the the dumbing down of television and the tabloidization of journalism. As Ralph Nader called it, "sound barks," not even sound bites.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Opportunity
Blessed
Eye
Copy Quote
There's so many amazing articles coming out all the time and because of the internet circulating great writing - even if the writers don't get paid enough most of the time, unfortunately - but there's never been a more amazing flow of information on all of the issues. I would love to see a revival of what we had against the war in the '60s - we could do thes
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
War
Issues
Writing
Copy Quote
I don't go into any album with a concept or a deliberate direction. It's more letting the best music that really appeals to me at the time, the best songs that I find after many months and years of search and sifting through my collection, and asking radio people and journalists. It's really an ongoing search that's as much daunting as it is somewhat exciting.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
People
Song
Years
Copy Quote
I would love to see a revival of what we had against the war in the '60s - we could do these teach-ins on the internet, live and split screen, and have real in-depth debate between people that are on the "other" side of issues - nuclear, gun control, whatever. We could really be having a much more democratically involved and exciting debate with people emailing their questions and having a virtual town meeting.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
War
Gun
Real
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Those of us who grew up in the '50s and '60s, we had the dream that this could be turned around, and the earth could be back in balance, and that we could level the playing field with men and women and pay, and you know, minority groups having equal opportunity. We just magically thought this was all going to happen: we were going to have clean food, and organic this, and conscious that, and it just didn't happen.
Bonnie Raitt / Singer-Songwriter
Death
Dream
Opportunity
Men
Balance
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