Quotes About Authenticity

I love Bach cello suites, I love punk music, I love old blues, negro spiritual quartets, Muddy Waters' 'You Need Love.' There is a simplicity but also a bite that connects all that music, from the growl in the cello to the timbre in Muddy's voice.

Artists, whether they're Tom Cruise or John Waters or Ron Howard or Oliver Stone, you can empower them to become a better version of themselves, but you cannot change them 180 degrees to be someone they are not.

Call me Shaky, not Michael. I've been Shaky for so long it would be like calling Muddy Waters McKinley, wouldn't it?

It's either you finna create your own wave, you finna sound like me or you finna sound like G Herbo, you finna sound like Chance The Rapper, you finna sound like Juice Wrld. You ain't gonna get too far 'cause you sound like somebody. So, create your own lane and do your own style.

I didn't want to wave the flag and be like, 'Look! I'm gay! Da da da.' I just wanted to say, 'This is my lifestyle.'

I beg you I no magician. I can't just wave a magic wand.

If I could wave a wand, I would order another season of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.' That's a show with a real voice.

First of all, there's the celebrity thing. Like, who are you here for, are you dating me or are you trying to date my dad? These men either just want to be there for one thing and don't want to stay for the real relationship part or they just want to ride the wave and be bougie and bomb and have their picture taken and do all of that.

Now I have a standard for how I make sure people do not speak to me in a way that I feel uncomfortable with. When I was younger, I didn't have that. I was like, 'Try not to make waves.' I wanted everybody to like me, and so I stifled a lot of the discomfort that I had.

I don't follow waves or trends or emotions.

I have this big, old, oversize Levi's denim jacket, and I honestly think it might be for a dude. And on the back, it says, 'Catch feelings, not waves,' which I love because I'm very emotional.

There's so many singers, you watch them and a lot of it is waving around. You don't get this feeling that they're really thinking about what they're saying.

I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn't much of a stretch.

I'm not a fan of plastic surgery. Oh, and I've never had a wax in my life. Waxing makes no sense to me because you have to grow it out to wax it.

I can't stand people who look into the camera and look into the eyes of millions of people and wax political correctness.

Live-tweeting your bikini wax is not vulnerability. Nor is posting a blow-by-blow of your divorce . That's an attempt to hot-wire connection. But you can't cheat real connection. It's built up slowly. It's about trust and time.

I'm not trying to be sexy. It's just my way of expressing myself when I move around.

You got one life to live. So I'm living it the way I want to live it.

I'm just myself. That's the best way to put it.

Great artists are people who find the way to be themselves in their art. Any sort of pretension induces mediocrity in art and life alike.

I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one's nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.

'Crazy-busy' is a great armor, it's a great way for numbing. What a lot of us do is that we stay so busy, and so out in front of our life, that the truth of how we're feeling and what we really need can't catch up with us.

I dress the way I want. I don't pretend to be someone I'm not.

People have often asked if I'm gay because I don't go out of my way to spit and scratch and give people attitude.