Quotes About Independence

I tried to interest my daughter in dancing, but she didn't take to it. As a five-year-old, she got lost on the way to her first class. After that she didn't go to dance class again.

Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man. I shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.

I work with my brother Finneas, and he produces all of my music in his little bedroom in our house. We actually tried renting out a studio for a month when we were producing 'Don't Smile at Me,' but it was really hard there, and we ended up just doing it at home anyway.

I think have my own style; no one has ever tried playback singing before. I might release a punk rock song that perhaps other won't appreciate, but I like doing my own thing. I make music for my own satisfaction, not for money or fame.

I think because there is the constant looming threat of nepotism and judgment, I really tried to separate what I was doing at MTV, my auditions, anything I was doing creatively, from my family.

There was no one in particular I really tried to copy.

I've never tried to find my real parents. I'm very grateful to my mum and dad for adopting me - they're completely incredible people. It was my dad who encouraged me to question everything, to forge my own path, to think, to read. I always felt it was my right to question everything.

Everybody tries to be exactly the same. I think being an outsider is a good thing.

Writing is an incredibly creatively empowering experience for me. It is the place where nobody tries to control what I'm doing.

I guess I feel the most powerful when someone tries to take my power or belittle me or insult me, and it doesn't work.

I don't like confrontation. I don't care about it. If someone tries it with me, they will be talking to themselves because I don't listen.

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.

Unless someone physically tries to attack me, I don't care what anyone does.

Everyone tries to be so slick and modern and computerized. I've always done everything myself with little money, so I guess it's become 'my look,' but it's not really intentional.

The older kids, if they wanted something from you, whether it was cash or sports equipment, they would just take it. My older brothers used to say, 'If someone tries to take something from you, never give it to them.' So we fought all the time.

If someone, a director, tries to tell me the way to do something, I'm not good at adapting. I need time to go away and think about things.

If I hear someone say something, and they're 100 per cent about it, then it's almost inevitable that I'll take the opposite view. I guess I feel at odds with things like society. Absolutism is always a trigger for me.

Sometimes, I tell my wife I have to take a car trip and collect new memories - I like to drive around at absolute random for weeks on end through the United States and parts of Canada. Or else I feel trapped, like you feel when your life is completely planned for months in advance, and you think you're not getting enough oxygen.

I'm releasing a single. It's called 'Live it Up.' It was based on my Euro trip. I only write my own music. I don't let other people write it at all. So I've been working on that a lot. There's three singles coming out. The producer of The Fray who did their double-platinum album 'How to Save a Life,' I'm working with him. He's producing me.

I think I get my alone time when I have to go fly and do a work trip. After work's done, I go check into my hotel, and I get to have a few hours to myself to order room service and just be quiet and silent.

I lived at Star City for more than a year ahead of my trip to Mir on May 18, 1991 in Soyuz TM-12. My life at Star City was so remote that learning Russian became my greatest priority.

All our efforts to guard and guide our children may just get in the way of the one thing they need most from us: to be deeply loved yet left alone so they can try a new skill, new slang, new style, new flip-flops. So they can trip a few times, make mistakes, cross them out, try again, with no one keeping score.

I'm what you call a satisfied single. I don't want to give any trip reports when I come home.

I learned a long time ago that advice is a quick trip to nowhere. It's the commitment that only you can make in yourself, the responsibility to assume control of yourself.