Quotes About Nonconformity

I have a little experience in doing things that are unpopular.

I don't like the idea of fitting into a mould so as to conform. What I like is the danger, the difference - being unpredictable.

You won't find me out in a club. I'm a bit unruly, in my own way.

There is something very strange and unsettling for me about making a work that doesn't fit with what's the norm or what's acceptable. There's something both liberating about it and challenging. I can imagine it doing more harm than good.

I think that certainly the artists of the '40s, '50s and '60s were fighting a very conformist society, which didn't give them enough space to live or create, and they were bucking all kinds of spoken and unspoken rules.

There is sort of an unspoken 'no skateboarding' clause on tour that I break pretty often.

Why can't I be different and unusual... like everyone else?

I'm a little bit more unusual so I consider myself as the black sheep.

I tend to be drawn to characters who are not rule followers, who behave in unexpected and unusual ways.

I am not in this world to live up to other people's expectations, nor do I feel that the world must live up to mine.

I didn't know how to dance, so I just jumped up and down and bashed people. Then everybody else started doin' it, but they didn't get it right, so I quit.

I am inspired by the appearance of a bohemian of the new millennium. I thought it was necessary to update the figure of the bohemian, but not in the traditional way.

In order to be who you are as a human being, you need to be willing to upset people.

I frequently find myself praying for punk, for something to come along and upset everybody and ignite a few fires and behave disreputably.

I think that what makes you cool at the end of the day is letting go, not being superficial or uptight, and being different.

I end up pleading my case to alternative programmers - you're telling me that my music is too dark for pop, too pop for alternative, and urban radio won't touch it - so we have a record that doesn't fit in. And what is more alternative than that?

Being faith-driven, being a hip-hop artist, being artistic in an urban context - all of those things make you unique, and you put yourself on the outside of what's considered the norm.

I do play tennis in shorts, I have driven across the length and breadth of the country from Khardung La pass to Kanyakumari in my beloved Ambassador car, and I did compile my 100 Lyrics book, inspired by Lyrics by Sting. I don't subscribe to any definition of an Urdu poet.

We may all be a peculiar lot...often broke, often dissatisfied because we're not doing more and better work...but we know how to have a ball that makes the rest of the world seem square.

Nobody else took what I was doing seriously, so nobody would want to work with me. I was thought to be a bit eccentric and maybe cranky.

I'd rather hop freights around the country and cook my food out of tin cans over wood fires, than be rich and have a home or work.

Geography has no bearing on it, nor have the interests of the community in which I work.

That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.

I don't work well outside the lines; my report card once read, "doesn't play well with others."