Jill Scott Quotes

With every project you do, you bring out a part of yourself, and it seems to be quite a good way of expanding a person.

There's always constantly interesting things to do, and who knows, maybe I will be a good sculptor. I haven't decided what I am going to do next, but I am not going to quit just because I did something interesting.

I gave up the idea of having a career when I was 24. Sounds glamorous, but I've been doing things since then, and part of those adventures was to make films because I realised I was actually quite good at it and I enjoyed it.

Songwriting is like going to church. I'm connecting to something, and it's rewarding in really important ways. I don't need to share it with anyone to feel good about it.

Sometimes I think it'd be fun to do a completely different job for a while. You've got one life and you do the same job for the whole of it, and you think - was that a good use of a life?

I love how people in this business push themselves to know themselves, the world, and their creativity better.

The more I do in my life, the more I can write music about new experiences.

It's fun to branch out a bit. I feel like I've held a lot of tricks up my sleeve for a lot of years, and 'Ex-Girlfriends' is a good way to show another side of me.

My acting career wasn't going where I wanted it to. I wasn't getting good parts. I got so bored with myself that I started writing.

People don't really know themselves until they're 30. Like most people nowadays, I went to university, got a degree and wandered for a bit. I trained to be a chartered accountant, which I didn't much enjoy, and it was only slowly that the idea of becoming a creative writer gelled.

And I discovered after a couple years that I really didn't miss making movies.

Not everyone has to be a model and a designer, there are so many other options that are great and long-lasting. It's just finding what you're good at and being honest with yourself.

After I left college, I went to work at the Royal Opera House in London, which became a real catalyst for me because it made me realize that I was interested in cinema and in the way life is thrust at you. So I started making films.

I've created my own career in my life, and I've had a lot of fun doing it. I think that's good.

I was a magazine illustrator for many years before I became an actor, and I used to think, 'Oh, God, all those wasted years!' But now I think it's just been one big enterprise of illustrating. I used to do it with colored pencils, and now I do it with this voice and this set of limbs.

A lot of my music is inspired by personal situations in my life.

I have no idea where my career is going. I just make the best music that I possibly can.

I'm at the point in my career now, where I can take a bit of time to find exactly what roles are that I want to do and not work myself into a corner. I love acting and I love who I'm becoming, as I evolve as a human being. My work is an important part of me, which may or may not be healthy, so I need to do things that I love. I want to tell interesting stories, discover things about myself, and other people. The only way to do that is to not take jobs that feel repetitive or boring to me because then you're stuck doing that job instead of finding the thing that speaks to you.

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live and could not spare any more time for that one.

It never gets boring for me because there's so many different things to explore in the studio. The studio's become the sanctuary that people have come in and found new things out about themselves, as weird as that sounds. But it's true, I'm no different. I've made some crazy hard records, and I've made a jazz album.

I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.

Yes, all my songs come from personal experience and relationships.

I had a very good job in corporate America, but I quickly knew that was not how I was wired.

I went to film school at UT Austin. I learned a lot, and that school's good for puking up all your bad movies early and quick. But ultimately, no one can teach you to be an artist.

I know from experience that careers do not always arise from a deep sense of destiny.