Quotes About Authenticity

I think there's a lot of pressure on young people to really be the thing that everyone is telling them that they are, opposed to discovering it for themselves.

I was so beat down as a young person - being black, being gay, being unable to assimilate because I could never, ever pull off being butch.

I think the more important task for a young person than developing a personal brand is figuring out what she's great at, what she loves to do, and how she can use that to leave an imprint in the world. Those are tough questions, but essential ones. Answer those - and the personal brand follows.

When I get asked for advice for a young person starting in the music business, I tell them, 'Play every chance you get, and be real lucky.'

As a young woman, I was disturbed by the fact that there was no imagery that truly expressed the experience of a young woman and the challenges and turbulence we go through. All we had were teenage magazines like 'Cosmopolitan,' which are very one-sided and show an objectified view of women.

I love seeing a young woman embrace who she is.

As a young woman, I had been seeking experience, knowledge, truth, the stuff writers need in their work, but when the artist actually kicked in, I came to understand that in this romantic relationship I was not free to be myself, or to find myself, in order to begin the true work I needed to do.

When people watch me on TV, they see part of my life. I wanted to let them know the real me behind the scenes. The child who was a concert violinist from the age of six. The young woman who took on the challenge to compete in the Miss America pageant. The television journalist for twenty-five years.

When our world is telling girls and women who they should be or what they should look like, it is critical that we empower those girls and young women to be confident with who they are.

My goal is to send a message to Muslim women and young women everywhere that it's okay to break stereotypes and be yourself.

There's a lot of pressure on young women. We need more honest women who are willing to talk about their struggles.

I get so much mail from young women saying that they are so insecure when they look at me, but they don't realize all of the flaws that I have.

I don't ever want young women to look at me and feel any kind of pressure to look or dress like me.

I've been very honest with the press, even when I had work done on my face. A lot of people would cover that up. I want to be a voice for young women. I want to empower them. I've been through a lot, and I want to send them a relatable message.

There are so few strong roles for women, especially young women. And Veronica is very serious but also very likable. She's a lone wolf, and it appeals to people that she isn't rich and doesn't have a lot of friends. No posse. She's just like you, like most of us.

There's so many young women today who look so lost. And I feel like, of course they're lost. They have no one around them to give them real, authentic reflection.

I did an internship with Dove when they were doing the 'real beauty' campaign, and I was really inspired by that. Growing up in L.A., being a young woman, and seeing how the media tells young women to be everything you're not, I kind of wrote about that experience.

I hope being honest about my experiences and contextualizing them empowers young women to step into their truths, tell their own stories, and live visibly.

I really don't like that modern notion of 'I don't need anyone.' I see a lot of young women feeling they have to be that way, they have to be hard, in a way. And what does that bring them? They're just going to be lonesome. They're going to be, at best, lonesome and capable, at worst, lonesome and hard. And is that what we want? No.

A lot of my fans are young women that are my age. We're all going through the same problems at the same time, so I just tried to be really honest with that.

We try to push such crazy ideals onto young women: the Hollywood version of what they should look like, what they should do, and the kind of Prince Charming they should be looking for. We should just be proud of who we are, because we can't be anybody else. So what's the point of trying?

Like a lot of young women, I went through an entire period where I hated female characters - I didn't want to read about them! I thought I was going to be the cool girl who was not like other girls.

I'm just trying to be myself and encourage other young women to be themselves.

Young women look at me and think, 'She's really confident. She has always had it figured out,' but actually, I really, really haven't. That has come over time as I became a young woman.