Afeni Shakur Quotes

It's no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.

I feel like when I say something sad, I mean it.

In order to move others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility.

I write songs from the heart, and I don't hold back.

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot.

I write to music, and Nina Simone is always on my playlist to write to. I mean, she's inspiring. She's truthful and real and raw.

In my music and my life, I'm honest with my feelings, and people appreciate that. That's just the way I am.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

A lot of the work I've done has been about being very raw and open with your emotions.

I wear my heart on my sleeve, and whatever I was giving, it was just coming from my natural place at that time. And you know, some albums I've made, I look back and think they were great, and then some I look at, and I think that wasn't right at the time.

So release yourself from that. Don't be strategic or coy. Strategic and coy are for jackasses. Be brave. Be authentic. Practice saying the word 'love' to the people you love so when it matters the most to say it, you will.

Goddamn it, FEELING is what I like in art, not CRAFTINESS and the hiding of feelings.

I certainly wear my heart on my sleeve, and I think that comes out in the characters that I play. There's a yearning, or something, that comes out of me that people relate to.

I use myself for each part. Naturally, it's my body, it's my soul, it's my feelings. That's the only way I know how to work. I couldn't pretend.

I find the greatest songs in the world come out of pain, and I don't like it! Here's what it does: It strips away all of your facade. It makes you so honest. It's cleansing.

Anger cannot be dishonest.

I feel what I sing, and I sing what I feel. Really, that's all I can do.

Anything I've ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

I think the best acting is when you allow yourself to be kind of vulnerable in the moment.

I am, by nature, an honest person. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. There is no 'behind closed doors' with me.

I like to play very raw characters, characters who have a degree of vulnerability and passion about what they're doing.

Most of the time I feel stupid, insensitive, mediocre, talentless and vulnerable - like I'm about to cry any second - and wrong. I've found that when that happens, it usually means I'm writing pretty well, pretty deeply, pretty rawly.

I think I've learned that if you want to be successful, you have to tell your story honestly and from your heart - and I think a healthy sense of humor doesn't hurt either.

I'm too sensitive and too sincere.