Quotes About Self-expression

It doesn't matter what people say or what the rules say or what you're supposed to do, you go after what's in your heart.

I sometimes laugh at the fact that people say I have good style.

I was never a hippy, per se.

I love the way little kids dress themselves! They're completely carefree about how others perceive them.

I've stopped caring how others are going to perceive me if I wear something that they don't like.

Write for yourself, not for a perceived audience. If you do, you'll mostly fall flat on your face, because it's impossible to judge what people want. And you have to read. That's how you learn what is good writing and what is bad. Then the main thing is application. It's hard work.

My job is to put myself out there. It's beyond my control how I'm perceived.

I think that you have to present an image that is... true to you, and... the way you would like to be perceived, so I think that through the years I've worked really hard at trying to create an image that is true to me.

I spent many years trying to fit in and do things the way I thought I was supposed to - trying to be perceived the way I thought people wanted to see me. I grew up in a very religious household and wasn't taught to feel comfortable or good about my sexuality, so it feels great to be able to say things the way I want to say them.

I don't only like R&B. I always love in life when you see people acting in a way that is true and genuine to them but doesn't fit into the perceived notion of how they would respond to something.

Ninety percent of my clothes are women's.

I'm not thinking when I'm writing, 'How's this going to read?' Or, 'What percentage of the audience is going to stay with me?' The thing itself is what gives me pleasure. Sometimes stuff just falls onto the page so beautifully and happily that it's deeply satisfying. It's selfish!

I'm trying to be myself, trying and be aggressive no matter what percentage I'm shooting.

My identity will always inform my experience and shape my perception. But I am an unremarkable person.

People should see my work and think beyond what I am on daily basis, on Twitter, Instagram, or the perception they have of me in their heads.

There's this perception that you can't be more than one thing. That if you're dubbed 'sexy' you can no longer be anything else. That you become intellectually uncomplicated, incapable of accomplishing anything other than appearing to be an object for men. And it's rubbish.

Writing, for me, when I'm writing in the first-person, is like a form of acting. So as I'm writing, the character or self I'm writing about and my whole self - when I began the book - become entwined. It's soon hard to tell them apart. The voice I'm trying to explore directs my own perceptions and thoughts.

I am who I am and that's all I'll ever be. Not perfect, nobody is.

Perfect isn't normal, nor is it interesting. I have no features without makeup. I am pale. I have blond lashes. You could just paint my face - it's like a blank canvas. It can be great for what I do.

I just wanted to do my own albums where nobody could tell me what to do. Roc Nation was the perfect fit because I could do what I wanted to do.

I am an open book, and I'm fine being me: I'm not a perfect person.

I am not interested in perfection, and neither are the women who wear my clothes.

Here's the thing about lingerie: The only time we see it outside our own bedrooms, it is on women who are gloriously freakish in their physical perfection.

People who are perfectionists always want to control everything, but when you sing, you have to let go. And that's hard.