Juan Gabriel
Money can be taken away from you, by the IRS or by pistol. That's why I always measure riches in terms of wisdom. No one can ever take from you what you know.Collection: Wisdom
They say fame is important and that maintaining your fame is even more important. But to me, the most important thing is to deserve the respect of your fans.Collection: Respect
You don't ask about what can be seen.
American music has infiltrated the entire world enough as it is. Mexican music must be defended with vigilance.
Art is feminine... Look, if you're handsome and young and beautiful, well, people are always going to say that you're gay.
Lovers come back. Styles come back. But time? It never comes back.
My mother didn't know what to do with me.
Art is feminine.
I've learned during my life that if I am in hell, I make my own glory. I've also been in glory, and perhaps I've made my own hell, but I certainly don't take anyone down with me.
What I say is what I feel, whether anyone likes it or not.
The artist knows how to sing, not how to count.
When I have the opportunity to work, I organize a whole party - like what you perhaps saw at the Grammys.
Work is my best friend.
Mexico is known throughout the world thanks to mariachi.
As Juan Gabriel, music is my religion, and mariachi is my devotion. And my songs are my prayers.
People who know Mexico know me because I'm so much a part of Mexico.
There are no rules when I compose songs.
There are times when I'm really happy and I write something really sad, and vice versa.
Everyone who gave me food, who took away my hunger, inspired me to compose. They told me their stories, and I had no other way to console them than with a piece of music, and that is how I learned. I did not resolve their problems with my songs, but I created a moment of release.
My thoughts, my feelings, my spirit, they are all in Spanish.
Mexico is a very mom-centered culture. You'll find stores open on Father's Day, but never on Mother's Day. For us, mothers are very important.
I compose songs with a lot of simplicity because my school has been the streets, and people have been my books.
I enjoy every moment because I believe that once we die, that's it. We're not coming back.
Since I was sent to an orphanage, and I saw very little of my mother, I can counsel mothers that you shouldn't abandon your children. Before you bring a child into the world, think deeply about things, so that they lack absolutely nothing, least of all love.
When I was very young, I sold the rights to my work... through 2000.
I'm a person who, when I set out to write, I write. It's just like when you set out to eat, you eat, or when you set out to sleep, you sleep. I don't do somersaults to write something. I just do it.
Someone who's passed through the circumstances that I have has to make the decision either to be a good person or a bad person, and I decide to become better at every opportunity.
I think I am an artist. I think I am Juan Gabriel, who has given so much with my songs.
Let others worry about their own lives, and let the rest of us live.
To transcend and be yourself... I have no reason to tell you, and others, something that is not of interest to you.
I think, today, television is asking too many loaded questions, pushing further for ratings.
There is no more disastrous mania, no more dangerous whim, than the speculation over roads not taken.Collection: Taken
The saddest thing that can happen to a person is to find out their memories are lies.Collection: Memories
I don't believe in competing, because there's room for everyone. You have to compete with yourself, because your duty to grow as a human being and keeping your humility is much more important than your music career. You can get money, women, travels, but all that's an illusion.Collection: Believe
The most wonderful thing in life is to do something for a child because they're children for such a short time. We can't allow ourselves to let them live a miserable childhood.Collection: Children
I don't believe in anything, only in myself, but I respect all people who believe in something.Collection: Believe
Art itself is female - it is full of graciousness, cadence, color, rhythm. It's full of love and grace.Collection: Art
Experience, or what we call experience, is not the inventory of our pains, but rather sympathy we learn to feel for the pain of others.Collection: Pain
When I was 15, all I knew was that I had to be somebody and that I could be somebody. So I exploited the only thing I knew, which was singing and songwriting.Collection: Singing
I have a tendency to trust translators, mainly because nobody does it for the money.Collection: Doe
Adulthood brings with it a pernicious illusion of control.Collection: Illusion Of Control
I was also surprised by the alacrity and dedication we devote to the damaging exercise of remembering, which after all brings nothing good and serves only to hinder our normal functioning, like those bags of sand athletes tie around their calves for training.Collection: Athlete