A. R. Rahman Quotes

If music wakes you up, makes you think, heals you...then, I guess the music is working.

Your best success comes after your greatest disapponitment

Music is something that takes you to a world which is very different from the world of hatred,jealousy, and all those negative emotions

All my life I have had a choice of hate and love. I chose love and I am here

Rather than making money I believe in making people happy, all other things are secondary. Money isn't important, creative satisfaction is

Music is language itself. It should not have any barriers of caste, creed, language or anything. Music is one, only cultures are different. Music is the language of languages. It is the ultimate mother of languages.

Be original and find your inner voice. The rest will follow.

The more you know the less you talk.

Success comes to those who dedicate everything to their passion in life. To be successful, it is also very important to be humble and never let fame or money travel to your head.

Music is all about transporting people, speaking a language which languages fail to express.

You can't be without passion. Passion means the possessiveness to be the best.

No regrets. There is no time for that. Regret is boring.

When you do something with a lot of honesty, appetite and commitment, the input reflects the output.

I want to go beyond the restrictions of language, religion and caste, and music is the only thing that allows me to do that.

In my opinion, everybody has the same soul from God and we are united by that. Outside, our bodies are different, our faces are different, but inside we are all the same, we share the same feelings of sadness, love, pain My music comes out of these feelings. Whether it is Japanese music, African, Qawalli, or any other form of music, if it touches your heart it becomes important for me.

Each one of us has our own evolution of life, and each one of us goes through different tests which are unique and challenging. But certain things are common. And we do learn things from each other's experience. On a spiritual journey, we all have the same destination.

Music knows no barrier of age or culture. It isn’t about being politically correct or even making a statement. Music is what appeals to the ears and touches your soul.

My biggest dream to connect people through music has come true. In a world where there are enough reasons to separate us, the Oscars have unified us.

The more I compose, the more I know that I don't know it all. I think it's a good way to start. If you think you know it all, the work becomes a repetition of what you've already done.

I love the voice - it’s the most perfect instrument ever heard. It’s God given.

I like music that is able to stir my soul. My music is a spiritual exercise

There is only one of the two that can reside in our hearts, GOD or ego. If GOD is in ego is out.

The search is more important than the destination

The music had to be rooted, and yet had to branch out,like the wild imagination of a child.

Your inner voice is the voice of divinity. To hear it, we need to be in solitude, even in crowded places.

I was a common man, and I will always remain a common man. No amount of stardom will ever consume my soul. Money comes, money goes. Fame comes, fame goes. I believe every human being is a celebrity in their own right.

I listen to everything. As I told you, sometimes I just want to shut off from music and be silent. Then I play a song and it's refreshing. It's almost like initializing yourself. Recently I was in South Africa doing a press day for my tour. I listened to this band called "Freshly Ground." They were doing a live gig there so that's the last thing I've heard.

It had a language. It's a very emotional language that only exists in India, that part of [inaudible] so we wanted to use that. I had two versions - one with my voice and one with the girl's voice. But he preferred the girl's voice and he preferred my voice with an [inaudible].

I basically love classical music. I love a lot of musicians playing together and the whole culture of that whether it's Indian or it's Western. But in India, I think it's limited to filler music unfortunately. That's one thing I want to push in India where we have the infrastructure of an orchestra where you play Indian melodies with an orchestra and something different for a universal audience. It requires a lot of work from me.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Obama, Thank you for sending me Christmas and New Year greetings yet again. Welcome back to India... Would have loved to host you at my concert in Baroda on the 26th!

We didn't want to do that. It would have been a beautiful moment in the movie but it would have brought the movie down. So Danny's vision was perfect I think when he wanted it to be driven at the same time having this new emotion about this boy coming as a hallucination or like a déjà vu and as the future kid.

In my case, dust has become gold: Today, I work with people I grew up admiring.

I believe that whatever comes at a particular time is a blessing from God.

The idea of music is to liberate the listener and lead him to a frame where he feels he is elevated.

Since I worked with Danny Boyle before on Slumdog Millionaire, we have great success and everything. So, when I first got the script and the screenplay of Simon (Beaufoy) and I was reading it, even before the shoot, some kind of sounds came into my mind and I put some stuff [down] and sent it to Danny when he was cutting the movie.

The institution of marriage works better when there's a spiritual connection. If you're marrying just for the sake of the woman, then you may lose interest in each other very soon. When we marry in the interest of the Holy Spirit with the intention of serving God and humanity, then it gives a much larger perspective.

After a point of time, when you get success and fame, money and everything, the purpose of life has to be redefined. For me, I think that purpose is to build bridges. Artists can do that very easily, more than politicians.

People Expect Something New From Me All The Time.And That's Good It Keeps Me On The Edge

If a musician wants to blossom into a full-fledged person, it's not enough if he knows only classical music; nor it is enough if he's well-versed only in raagas and techniques. Instead, he should be a knowledgeable person interested in life and philosophy. In his personal life there should be, atleast in some corner of his heart, a tinge of lingering sorrow.

When I initially read the script, it goes inside and comes out different things even without commenting on any stuff. And then, those pieces are taken out and then spread out through the movie.

These are the Rad instruments that are dying out in India. So, it's going well and I think now we are increasing the number of kids we have taught and of course we are helping out with other things too. It's based in India now. [The idea is to] perfect it in one place and then we'll expand.

I am a big admirer of Sachin and his personality. He is a source of inspiration for the country and just looking at his photographs gives a lot of positive vibes.

There were basically three themes. One was the sun theme which is the guitar when he'd get sun on his leg and it comes again in the end. And there's of course the lullaby which Dido sang, "If I Rise." And then there's this driving guitar which is the motivation theme.

There have been predictions that the world will come to an end on 21.12.12. But I look around me and I see so much scope for hope.

I think I would like to discover a new root where people don't get bored with people singing boring lines but something exciting. That'd be interesting.

I've been doing music for many years and after a point what is the motivation that drives you to compose and to do stuff? I did this song for the U.N., a fighting for poverty anthem. That's when I realized that I could do a foundation. And when I started the foundation, it was basically to fight poverty and to help - that kind of stuff.

Because when you work with a different team, the expectations are different and then you deliver in a very different way. You look back at it and you're proud of yourself. And when the same people come in and you do the same thing, it's boring. You could re-envision it again and again but when the new chemistry of ideas comes in, something happens as a team.

My list would be Russia, Morocco, Turkey, and South Africa I'm doing which is somewhere I've wanted to go, Australia, Japan maybe, and China, if I have the energy to go and play at all those places.

Certain things are done intentionally opposite - like there's no sound at the end or synthesizers or all that stuff. Anything that drowns the movie, no. Anything that makes you sit up and watch it, yes. So, some are expecting a very sad theme going on.

That was a very different emotion and I felt Dido's words would be good and I had a template with my voice in it. Then, when he heard it, he wanted both our voices together in it and that's the scene when he sees the boy and then he gets charged to go on that final cutting effort.