K'naan Quotes

Although men are accused of not knowing their weakness, yet perhaps as few know their strength.

My personal life, my musical life, my life as an artist - almost everything has pointed all these little arrows that make up which way I go as a person and what I feel comfortable as my identity.

I think I'm one of those people that needed to be seen by someone else to see myself. But then on the other hand, the way I do my work, I always try to only completely focus on my work, so when I do my work I'm only interested in my character. So I don't have an idea of what it means for my career. So this is why I don't feel like I need to be discovered, because I feel like even without being discovered, I will be fine.

Each man has an aptitude born with him. Do your work.

I have never regarded myself as this or that. I have been too busy being myself to bother about regarding myself.

I've come to believe that whoever I am didn't start on December 14, 1946, and isn't going to end on whatever that mysterious date is in the future.

Most of us are raised to believe we are ordinary. The anchor of the universe is present in every child. A parent only needs to guide and step aside and let them fulfill their dharma. Help children remember that they can do or be anything.

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

I never consciously said, 'I want to be an actor.' It sounds stupid, but it's kind of like being a painter or something. You don't say, 'From today on I'm going to be a painter.' It's not something conscious - you've just been painting pictures all your life.

I was always making things. Even though art was what I did every day, it didn't even occur to me that I would be an artist.

We should try to understand our innermost needs. We shouldn't use irony to reduce their power.

When you awaken some morning and hear that somebody or other has been discovered, you can put it down as a fact that he discovered himself years ago - since that time he has been toiling, working, and striving to make himself worthy of general discovery.

A good leader is one who can tell another how to reach his or her potential; a great leader is one who can help another discover this potential for him or herself.

Everybody is a hero in their own story if you just look.

The only solutions that are ever worth anything are the solutions that people find themselves.

I came to singing organically.

I think it started since I was born, I always had a need to express myself, you know, as a human being, and I found that it felt right when I expressed myself through art, dance, through acting, so it kind of happened naturally.

We don't do things we aren't good at by nature. I wouldn't play basketball because I'm only 5' 1". Find what you enjoy - whether it's racing, flying a helicopter, being a doctor, or stitching clothes together. Once you've done that, you have the passion you need.

I've always been interested in how fast-moving our identity is and that I've never been able to pin down who I truly am. That inspires me to write, because I feel like that cements me a bit, in that I find my identity in being an artist.

My ideal is for each to do what he knows and what he can.

Over the years, I was never really driven to become a solo artist, but I was curious to find out who I was as an individual creative person. It's taken some time, but now I feel I've truly paid my dues. I guess I'm at a point now where I'm more comfortable in my own skin.

I was motivated to be different in part because I was different.

The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy... what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be?

On some level, I think we want our reading self to represent our best self.

I've learned that I'm most powerful when I'm doing my art.