Quotes About Validation

I still carry it with me that I'm a I-AA guy and I had to go down to the minor leagues in college football and prove who I was.

The court of public opinion should not matter, but we're all human. And sometimes things sting. But I think you have to be willing to shake it off, and to not fall in love with the applause either.

If Martin Scorsese thinks you stink, you stink.

I moved from Stockholm to London, and I didn't want to work with my parents or have them help me in any way, I think just to prove to myself that I have my own talent.

You're always super stoked when you see that your song did go the distance and people are recognizing it.

Growing up, people would always say, 'You have such a pretty face.' It's kind of backhanded. That's the kind of things we have to stomach.

One thing I loved when I was growing up, you maybe saw one review from a magazine like 'Rolling Stone,' but now there are 150 reviews before an album even comes out. There are so many opinions out there, but the only one that really matters is your own.

I saw 'Rolling Stone' magazine once, and they were talking about the top 50 songs, and there wasn't one Sly song; how does that happen? But, Sly isn't the type to brown nose for props. He's always known what he had, what he was capable of; I'm just proud that he took the time and effort to put it to music.

Everybody wants to be on the front cover of 'People' and 'Rolling Stone.'

It sure is cool that I was mentioned in 'Rolling Stone.'

We've played on 'Saturday Night Live' and got not even a Rolling Stone review.

Even when influential political and media figures vehemently complained about the criticisms I wrote, Salon's editors unfailingly stood behind my work.

I think I misunderstood the following in the footsteps bit, in a few of my early drinking years. I'd take any form of being compared to Dad as flattery. So if I fell off a stool or smashed up a TV set just because I was drunk, and somebody in the bar went 'Hey, man, that was just like Bonzo!' I would be really happy.

I ended up becoming so self-conscious that my songs stopped being about my life and started being about what people thought of my music. And that was really bad.

For some reason, we stopped getting gold stars at some age. It's time to bring them back.

There are still people, obviously, who are stopping you and want a selfie because they need to justify their own lives by being in close proximity to a celebrity... but those are minor with me. I'm not a major celebrity.

When people are running up to me in the grocery store screaming, 'Oh my God! Oh my God!' that's when I know I'm swervin'. As long as people are recognizing you and you matter to them, then you're doing something right.

Until it's on the radio or online, it's not real. With U2, our album isn't finished until it's in the stores.

The brilliance of Max Brooks is that he always quotes authorities at the back of his books that never existed. Like a Russian professor he made up that validates a story or character.

I felt like a glorified extra in everybody else's storyline.

When you're just starting out, and someone you think is a real storyteller says something good about you, that helps.

I was convinced I was worth less than my straight peers. I was at best inauthentic, and the longer I went without amending that dishonesty, the more ashamed I felt.

You feel me' - that's straight from me. You can put a stamp on that.

I do, in a strange way, care deeply what people think.