“- Ahmet Ertegun: Ray, I'm gonna tell you something and I don't want you to take it the wrong way.
- Ray Charles: Well, then give it to me right then.
- Ahmet Ertegun: I signed you because I sensed something special in you, not because you sound like Nate Cole or Charles Brown.”

Curtis Armstrong - Ahmet Ertegun
Jamie Foxx - Ray Charles

“At night! I think of my piano in its ocean grave, and sometimes of myself floating above it. Down there everything is so still and silent that it lulls me to sleep. It is a weird lullaby and so it is; it is mine.”
Holly Hunter - Ada

“I have given the piano back to you. I've had enough. The arrangement is making you a whore, and me wretched. I want you to care for me. But you can't. It's yours, leave. Go on, go.”

Harvey Keitel - Baines

“The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That's what musicians are.”
Ed Harris - Ludwig van Beethoven

“- Sam: Girls love musicians, don't they? Even the really weird ones get girlfriends.
- Daniel: That's right. Meatloaf definitely got laid at least once. For God's sake, Ringo Starr married a Bond girl!”
Thomas Sangster - Sam
Liam Neeson - Daniel