Lana Parrilla Quotes

I'm a girl from a good family who was very well brought up. One day I turned my back on it all and became a bohemian.

I've changed my music from time to time so I'm hoping that I can completely change my life from time to time, too. Like live in another land, in another place, and just get completely soaked up in another way of being. Could be in this country or another country, somewhere were you can be reborn a number of times not just creatively, but personally as well. I guess I want to go through life as more than one person.

The first 10 years of my life, I lived as 'Matangi.' When I came to England in '86, my first week of school was terrible because I would put my hand up to answer things, and no one would choose me because they couldn't say my name. My auntie came from Europe to visit us, and she was like, 'Just call yourself something else.'

I never did very well as an immigrant. I've lived in several countries and been a disaster everywhere.

I love changing what I look like because I always feel super strange whenever I do watch something that I'm in.

We all get a little tired of being ourselves sometimes. The answer is to reinvent yourself, but how do you do that and what is the cost?

When you move from a different country, it takes a while to make friends. I found myself being lonely a lot at first. In New Delhi, I had all my family. But Portland is one of those cities you can immerse yourself in and feel comfortable. People are so friendly.

I've had a great metamorphosis in my life. I struggled for a number of years because I was identified with that image of the Seventies.

My first novel, 'The Tiger's Daughter,' embodies the loneliness I felt but could not acknowledge, even to myself, as I negotiated the no man's land between the country of my past and the continent of my present.

I just decided I wanted to become someone else... So I became someone else.

Living in Germany Africanised me.

I have always been interested in the idea of self-reinvention.

I changed my name when I was 13. I don't know why but it made sense at the time. I wanted another identity. I wanted to reinvent myself.

It's not a lighthearted decision to change your language, your country, your citizenship, and come to a world where you don't know anybody, to leave a place where you've had opportunities to build friendships from childhood. That's quite a big decision to make.

I found music because I felt different.

I think everybody, or the great majority of human beings, have this aspiration to become other: to live a different identity, at least for a while.

I was a massive fan of Amy Winehouse growing up. I decided it would be a good idea to become Amy Winehouse with the beehive and ballet shoes. Six months into that, I looked into the mirror and decided I'd better be Mia.

When I was 13 and looking for my identity, I was obsessed with hippies.

I've grown up a lot in England.

I couldn't remember when I'd stopped willing to be trans and started wanting to be trans. If there were a difference, I'd forgotten it.

It was such a culture shock for me, being plucked from this diverse neighborhood in London into Jamaica Queens. I'm in this new environment, and I had an English accent.

I landed in New Jersey, where I could barely speak English, and I had to figure out what a short brown kid was going to do in this big white world.

I left Jamaica to come to England, but one place became another place. I lived in Tulse Hill, in Brixton and Coldharbour Lane.

I've gone through three changes- I thought I was a Christian then I was the devil then the third one, where I know who I am you know I feel like I'm an alien.

My books are more about people experimenting with different identities and social models in a short-term way before they can break through to something authentic.