Quotes About Self-expression

The finest clothing made is a person's own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

I'm black because I was born this way. I'm proud of it. Thank God I am who I am.

What I mean is that none of my talents had a - what's that great word - rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer - there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I'm a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do.

Growing up, all my friends used to say 'Naturi, you are so dramatic!' and I would think to myself, 'Thank you!'

I'm thankful for the opportunity to be somewhere where I just feel I can be myself and play ball and not have to worry about all the other stuff that comes along with it.

Thankfully, I already have a mogul I can pattern myself after: Oprah. We're a lot alike. I'm black, I love to relate things people talk about to myself, and people think my best friend and I are lesbians! My strength is that I'm more relatable.

Thankfully, I don't have a real mullet.

I give thanks everyday that I've been able to take my craziness and make it work for me.

I don't really think about male and female; if something's right for me, it's right for me, and it doesn't matter what it is - maybe that's what it took for me, a woman, to break down the doors.

My little sister, the first thing she said was, 'Can we go shopping?' I said, 'Just because I am gay does not mean I want to go shopping!'

I don't mean to look scary, it's just kind of what I have to work with. Maybe that's why my tattoos are literally the first thing people Google about me.

I made myself into a poet because it was the first thing I really loved. It was an act of will.

The actress they'd hired had refused to appear naked in front of the camera. I didn't like to appear naked either, but the first thing I did was take off my clothes and jump into the pool completely naked.

The first thing Fontana did was get me to change my hair colour from light brown to red, and the songwriter Mitch Murray suggested I change my name from Pauline Matthews to Kiki Dee.

Once I was finally liberated from my Kansas background, the first thing I did was get a sewing machine, because it's 1972, and I have to look like Mick Jagger and David Bowie every single second. Taffeta jumpsuits.

The first thing I pack for meets is my makeup bag!

The hardest thing about being in this business is just being able to be yourself. People act like there's this one set of rules to follow to be a pop star and I think, 'Well, you say I'm a pop star, so maybe that's not true.'

Getting the message out there to speak out is huge, and I think you can be the brightest person in the room, but people never know what's going on really inside and the hardest thing is to speak out. You've got to speak out. I think sometimes you maybe hold it all in and it can get too much at times.

What feels most productive to me isn't to think so much in terms of how I can be alternative, but how I can be subversive in a way that feels organic, how I can connect with people, and how I can just be myself, which may be the hardest thing to be.

I'm not really well educated - other than an art survey course at the High School of Art and Design in New York when I was, like, 15. I don't know the history of art, but I got over intimidation from the art world when I realized that I was allowed to feel whatever I want and like whatever I want.

The most important parts of fashion to me are confidence and expressing who I am.

I don't think of myself as a role model, but I do feel like, for women out there who are trying to figure out who they are, the most important choice to make is to live a life that's true to who you are inside. And let your ideas and your heart and your mind drive your fashion choices.

I think the most important thing is to be yourself and be genuine and don't try to tell anybody else's story but your own. And if it comes from a genuine place, I think people can tell, and if it doesn't, I think people can tell, and I think that eventually it shows.

One of the main inspirations behind The Power of Makeup was bullies and the one thing I believe in is that makeup is not just society, it's for you.