Wynton Marsalis Quotes

I think that all of us are 5-year-olds and we don't want to be embarrassed in the schoolyard.

As I got older, I became so self conscious about my birthmark that I was very hesitant about going to a pool party, because I didn't want my makeup to rub off.

I was a very awkward high schooler, especially in early high school.

I was a very unconfident teenager. I wanted desperately to fit in.

Countries are like adolescent entering a dance ... they're sure everybody is thinking about nothing but their inadequacies.

We moved in 8th grade, so 7th grade I was doing okay, and then 8th grade, everything fell apart. I had no fashion sense to speak of. We only had a couple of hair care products back then. We didn't have all these things to tame your hair. I had glasses; I had braces. I had it all.

That young man that I was in 1988 - I was insecure. Besides making good music, I wanted to be cool; I wanted to be accepted and stuff.

I hope people don't get tired of looking at me.

Growing up, I was picked on a bit; I was pretty heavy-set, and then I was a theater kid. I just felt unpopular and uncool, so I think in my mind I had this idea of fame and being popular and how nice that would be. The reality of it is sometimes it's not nice.

Originally they wanted it to be bigger, but I pleaded and pleaded and pleaded to have the smallest tonsure that they could get away with. A tonsure that could still be seen, but, I worried about my social life!

I used to be more self-conscious about style because when you're younger, you want to exist, you want to show everything you do.

Middle school was probably my hardest time. I was trying to fit in for so long, until about junior year of high school when I realized that trying to fit into this one image of perfection was never going to make me happy.

When I was younger, the pressure was just being cool. I never thought of myself as a cool guy. I always thought of myself as more of the goofy guy.

On some level, I think everyone felt like a dork in high school.

I just can't stand the sound of my voice sometimes, or how my face looks. There are always a few times at every premiere when I just have to cover my eyes when I'm up there.

I really wasn't heavy in high school. But no one feels right in their own skin, particularly in high school.

When the eyes are on you for the first time, you can't believe that people aren't criticising you.

I definitely wasn't cool in high school. I really wasn't. I did belong to many of the clubs and was in leadership on yearbook and did the musical theater route, so I had friends in all areas. But I certainly did not know what to wear, did not know how to do my hair, all those things.

In high school I never went to the prom because I was too consumed with gymnastics. Also, with my hair in pigtails and looking about 10, I wasn't exactly date material.

I didn't feel attractive in high school.

I spent every day just praying that I didn't look like a big dork on camera.

I wasted years worrying about what other people thought.

When I was young, I had this feeling that there was this handbook that I had never gotten that explained how to be, how to laugh, what to wear, how to stand by yourself in the hallway. Everyone looked so natural - like they all practiced and knew exactly what to do - even the way they pushed their hair out of their face.

My first three years of high school, I wasn't that cool.

I always had good friends, but I did not feel like a cool girl, ever.