Joan Armatrading Quotes

I'm lucky to not have a real job, to be able to express myself, be creative and be relevant.

When I lived in China, my works were already being banned, and I couldn't publish. In those days, when I was in China, I was writing for myself, so that's the process of writing for myself that was the most important thing.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

As a novelist, you have to be free. Books can't be an act of filial duty.

My writing was liberated once I abandoned acting.

The deeper I get into my life as a musician, I'm discovering that it becomes less and less about other people, and more about what I want to do. And that's a good place to be.

I went to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, which was great but very different from a typical university. They sat us down in the first week and said: if you want to party, you've come to the wrong place. There was no lie-ins or skipping lectures.

I just turned 40, and I look at so many performers and so many people who are actually always on time and always have an album out. They don't have actual lives, in my opinion. I feel like I'm so much more than being famous and meeting a musical quota. And I don't know, just the weight of the scrutiny and attention is too weird for me.

Amherst was pivotal in my broad intellectual development; MIT in my development as a professional economist.

Write for yourself. That's it. And write every day.

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control.

I was pretty happy with how my career had gone, mainly because of the enormous freedom I've had to write what I've wanted to write. I had a very clear picture of who I was as a writer.

I started modeling at 14. It's simple. You respond to what the photographer wants and wear other people's ideas. I got bored with it, though, so I went to university.

College gave me validation: I gained a lot of confidence, just from once or twice saying something in class and the professor saying, 'Great idea.' That experience has certainly helped me say to a director, 'Actually, I think my idea is at least worth talking about.'

I'm making the music I want to make, in my own space, and it's just incredible to be able to continue to do that.

Create something for yourself that you feel proud of, that you are in control of, that gives you a better understanding of the type of artist you want to be.

When you go to college you can just be whoever you wanna be. So I got there and I'm like, Yeah, I'ma rapper.

In college, you become truly independent; your discipline is honed. It has to be there for your studies. It helped make me who I am, and it increased my determination to be the best I could be.

Every now and then, as a composer and producer, it's important to write music for yourself.

I feel one should do things which pleases them, and my progression into super model then to an actress and now to an entrepreneur is based on this.

A master's is a lot more work than my first degree, but I'm an athlete who knows what she wants. I made up my mind, and I'm determined that this is what I'm going to do.

There's a stability in being a side person that can be kind of dangerous if you also want to be an artist on your own.

I wanna take what I'm doing and create something around it as opposed to trying to fit into someone else's world.

Attending Seattle Central was an awesome experience - it taught me a lot about discipline in a great way.

I didn't have a huge amount of on-camera experience before 'Fleabag.' It has definitely changed me as an actor. I remember the actor I was before; I felt stifled by the industry and the boxes people tried to put me in.