Quotes About Self-discovery

Young girls in particular aren't given a space to be messy and complicated and express themselves and experiment - they're told to be a little quieter and a little less than.

I'm in a relationship with myself. I think a lot of young girls should do that.

When I started coming on the scene, just really new into NXT, and people started seeing me, I got a lot of positive feedback from my friends, my friends back home. They were like, 'Oh, you are doing such great things for young girls,' and then it clicked in my head, like, 'Wow! I didn't know that was something I could do here.'

I was a 19 year old kid; I was 170 lbs soaking wet. I didn't have an identity. I didn't have a look. I didn't have the proper gear. I was just a young guy trying to be a wrestler. So, to be honest, WWE didn't even give me a second look.

I came out to my family when I was 13. I was a very young kid, a vulnerable kid.

When you're a young kid and you're gay, you're out there on your own. And you're trying to figure this thing out. And your parents typically aren't gay.

I took some meetings when I was 11. I think what was interesting about being a young kid in environments like that was people were like, 'You're so sure of yourself! You're so confident!' And I was like, 'I'm 12.' Now I've got to this place where I'm like, 'This is who I am.'

Young kids don't have their identity, so everything is so important. Now I'm mature. I know who I am and I know what my thing is and I know what I'm bringing. It's very clear and defined.

For me, 'I Am Woman' is all about transition. I turned 21 in December, so I'm not completely grown up yet but I'm not a little girl anymore. Just in that in-between stage. The song is everything I have ever heard a woman say. I loved this song for me and every young lady, girl and woman to be able to feel empowered in being female.

I know it's hard to believe that I'm no longer the young 'Zuri' everyone has grown to love, which I truly appreciate, but like every young lady, I'm growing, I'm maturing and finding myself at 16 years old discovering the joys and pains of the world we live in.

Coming-of-age stories are always appealing, especially as a young man who's still trying to figure out this complicated world.

In high school, I began to dig my way into Ethiopian history, and began to understand myself as a young man formed by multiple narratives.

I used the music kind of as therapy, and it's just amazing that I feel so free after doing that. I feel like I had it trapped inside of me and now I feel free. So it's been a very good therapy session for me as well.

The gay community just recognizes what their closets are and we straight have to spend years trying to figure out which closet we are trapped in.

It's terrible to be trapped in a bad marriage. It would be nice if your marriage was forever, but why grudge it for what it was not?

It's something you're born with, and you realize that you're trapped in the wrong body. It's not like one day you're like, 'I want to be transgender!'

I feel trapped in my body. I want to be like like Scarlett Johansson in 'Lucy,' when she unlocks everything within her - I want to do that. I want to be the alien in 'Arrival' - a spitty, infinite-time-loop creature.

I need space to grow and get old and be a human being. I don't want to be trapped in your ingenue bubble. And I don't agree with it either, by the way.

Before my transition I felt trapped, and now I've been set free.

I'm grounded in joy; I'm not grounded in the trauma anymore.

Trauma and pain and suffering can be the very thing that dislodges a person from themselves both in awful ways and larger ways that force one to reckon with one's own life.

In the late summer of 1986, the band I had been in for five years stopped playing. Suddenly, I was on my own. This new state of bandlessness was, at first, traumatic. When your group breaks up, a lot of broken parts hit the ground.

As a person, I was born to give out my opinions. By giving out my opinions, I realize who I am. As long as I can communicate, I'm not so lonely. If I cannot travel, or do art, or have company, if they take away all my belongings, it doesn't matter at all.

When you do films after films, you don't let life happen. At least, in my case, I end up relying too much on emotions, which aren't raw enough. Travel helps me to get a renewed approach towards things.