India Arie Quotes

The beauty of me being on stage is I have a voice.

I'm not that flashy in private; I'm usually pretty reserved. But on stage, it's about not being afraid of anything - of anyone judging you. It's one place you can be free. So why not sing as loud as you can, hoop and holler and jump around? A show is a moment. When it's done, it's over. I find that extremely liberating.

I love my lecture tours. I get up onstage. I have my stack of books and a glass of water and a microphone. No podium, no distance between me and the audience, and I just talk to people and get all excited and tell a lot of jokes, and sing some songs, and read from my work and remind people how powerful they are and how beautiful they are.

I am the 'Cosmic Dancer' who dances his way out of the womb and into the tomb on 'Electric Warrior.' I'm not frightened to get up there and groove about in front of six million people on TV because it doesn't look cool. That's the way I would do it at home.

I find it creatively satisfying to write material and say it out loud in a public place, whether or not anyone's listening.

I felt like I was flying without a net. But once I realized that the audience was my partner, I was flying a jet, because the people would allow me to develop the character on stage.

Whether it means having a show, or a movie, or just being on a stage, I need an avenue to say what I have to say.

I've been getting in trouble my whole life and I really don't care what anybody thinks of what I do on stage as a comic.

When I rap, it's just an extension of how I speak, and that's how I talk. If you don't like it, don't listen.

Stand-up was my entree into the entertainment world. I didn't have to act out somebody else's words. I could just stand there with a microphone, and nobody would interrupt me. It's the most narcissistic thing you could probably do.

I liked theatre because I could hide behind a role I was playing, but now, I just love being on stage. I don't pretend that I'm anyone else, I just show my full range when I am up there, and it's very liberating.

When I'm on a stage, it's just me, singing a song with words that I wrote and I believe in. And if I don't believe in them anymore, I'll stop singing that song.

When I started reciting my own poems in public, I worried that it would seem too theatrical, but now I find recitation very natural, because it allows me to address audiences directly.

I can introduce new parts because when you are on stage in front of a very happy audience or people who love what you are doing, you are able to do extraordinary things that you yourself didn't think you could do before.

One place that I really feel comfortable is being a comedienne. I'm very socially inept. There's so many things that I can not do in life, and this is, like, the one thing that I have mastery over. It's my world. And anybody who's coming to the show, it's like they're coming because they know that this is my world.

I was fooling everyone by surrounding myself with funny people. But then I put myself out there - writing my own sketches, going on stage with nobody surrounding me - and for some reason people were still laughing.

When people give you a writing assignment, they're asking what you think. That's the very opposite of being an actor. When you're an actor, no one wants to hear what you think.

I'm much more comfortable singing than talking.

I am the kind of person that wants to get up in front of crowds of strangers and perform monologues. To each their own.

I was brought up in a house full of women; the first time I realised no one was interrupting me was when I was on stage - that's probably the subconscious reason I became an actor.

For me, there's a fine line between being a cheeseball and being a good performer.

I always had the idea that I wanted to perform. I love being the center of attention - and I always love talking about myself.

I started performing very young as a salsa dancer, and every time I was on that stage dancing, all I knew was that I wanted to speak. I wanted the music to stop, and I wanted to speak.

I love performing. I can get to be that person I always wanted to be - godlike.

It was a big step, to go from not talking to people to stepping on to a stage. That's when I felt the most comfortable, because I could do anything I wanted to and say anything I wanted to, even if people didn't laugh.