Jay-Z Quotes

I think part of maturity is knowing who you are.

One of the greatest moments in anybody's developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is.

To explore different parts of yourself and different emotional lives... not to hide from who you are but to actually explore who you are.

I think I can see more clearly now - about how the pattern of past experiences has shaped who I am and the characters I have played - and I'm grateful for that.

I don't believe I've ever truly been in love because I don't believe that I've known myself well enough in the past to allow someone to love me.

Once you really know yourself, can't nobody tell you nothing about you.

For it is easy to criticize and break down the spirit of others, but to know yourself takes a lifetime.

We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better "me" who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.

As I stepped out to face myself in the mirror, reaching a hand to smooth away the steam, I saw myself differently. It was as if I had grown again as I slept, but this time just to fit my own size. As if my soul had expanded, filling out the gaps of the height that had burdened me all these months. Like a balloon filling slowly with air, becoming all smooth and buoyant, I felt like I finally fit within myself, edge to edge, every crevice filled.

I think that all of the scars and all of the layers that I've built over the years made me the person that I am today, and I'm pretty happy about that person.

So many people go through life, and they never deal with their own issues, no matter what the issues are - ours happen to be gender identity. But, how many people go through life and just waste an entire life 'cause they'd never deal with themselves to be who they are.

My personality doesn't interest me.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

Certainly, I devote my energy to both telling my personal life story and seeking self- obliteration. However, I will not destroy myself through art.

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

I've been through so much of my own self-search that I'm not as consumed with who I am as I used to be.

Self-exploration is very painful, but unless you do that, you will never know who you are and who you want to be.

It's not always easy to identify your own voice. It comes with time.

Part of spiritual and emotional maturity is recognizing that it's not like you're going to try to fix yourself and become a different person. You remain the same person, but you become awakened.

Knowing yourself and expressing it is hip. I think knowing yourself is the real journey, for me anyway.

I suppose everyone continues to be interested in the quest for the self, but what you feel when you're older, I think, is that you really must make the self.

Know, first, who you are, and then adorn yourself accordingly.

It's amazing what you find out about yourself when you write in the first person about someone very different from you.

I did not find that writing a diary with a lead male character differed in any essential way from writing one with a female character. They all had the same challenges in terms of attempting to establish an identity, coping with loneliness, friendships, relationships.

One of my problems is to find the self.