Kelela Quotes

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

You cannot live your life looking at yourself from someone else's point of view.

Everybody eventually discovers that they are an individual with the power to affect their own lives and make it better or not.

You can never control other people. You can only control yourself. I have definitely learned that.

I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. I'm going to figure out what that is.

It may be that the most interesting American struggle is the struggle to set oneself free from the limits one is born to, and then to learn something of the value of those limits.

I am what is mine. Personality is the original personal property.

I don't believe I am influencing anybody but myself.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

I think that, as African-Americans, oftentimes we have to put ourselves on pedestals as opposed to really looking at ourselves and trying to understand ourselves and become better people. We always have to be on pedestals.

Hold up a mirror and ask yourself what you are capable of doing, and what you really care about. Then take the initiative - don't wait for someone else to ask you to act.

People have to learn who they are - you can't have somebody else telling you who you are.

I can't point to a single person or incident that changed my life, but the recognition that there is a certain world order, has been consequential. It has empowered me to do things my way. I found an inner truth by which I abide.

I don't do anything I don't want to do. There are so many opportunities that come my way, but if there's something out there that I don't want to do, I truly don't do it, because I have to maximize my time. If there's truly an opportunity to be quiet and be by myself, I do it.

I want the subject to be in control. Because they will give me something I couldn't possibly know about them.

I had a desire to prove to myself that I was actually in control - that I wasn't a puppet.

I was kind of surprised to learn how controlling I am. I never thought of myself in that way. I think the root of the control issues is usually fear, because you want to know what's going to be happening at any given moment.

On some level, we as human beings can be who we want to be.

Every day I have many choices to make about who I want to be.

People from the most horrendous of childhoods can have good lives, but it comes down to a very seemingly simple word. 'Choice.'

Our aim is to help the clients help themselves, not to tell them what to think.

You can change yourself and you can change the situation but you absolutely cannot change other people. Only they can do that.

Having children, they're not your property. They need to figure out their own views. I think my daughters have a pretty healthy self-awareness, but I can't speak on their behalf.

It's very clearly stated in the film: You make your own choices, and what you're always fighting is ego.

We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.