Valerie June Quotes

I always tried so hard to fit in, and then I figured out that I didn't want to fit.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

Yeah, it's nice to look up to people, but the more you try to be somebody else, the less you are of yourself.

Everyone kept telling me, Just be yourself. Be yourself. I kept thinking, there's got to be more to it than that!

How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?

If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn't be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out.

Anybody who told you to be yourself simply couldn't have given you worse advice.

I believe so many people live what I call that false identity they are living according to other people's expectations, associations, their experiences, the labels in life. And they buy into that.

I am a very honest person, and I can only say there are moments in my life where I really did think I was being me in the sense of my morals and beliefs and the way I acted. But when I look back at certain things that I wore and my hair and make-up, I was like, 'Whoa! That wasn't me!' But I didn't know it back then.

I think that more and more there's a sense that the best performances I can give are the ones that are the truest to who I am. The further I move away from who I am, the worse they are.

When I first got into the league, I tried to fit in. Now I don't care.

I didn't start to work until I realized what it was I had to offer. I stopped imitating performers I admired and started just being myself.

You don't want to spend your life explaining yourself.

I'm a huge freak, and always have been. I spent the first part of my life trying really desperately not to be one, and it was just a waste of time.

I don't know what else I would be if I wasn't me. I am not looking from the outside, looking back. I am who I am.

I was always a class clown, so I never had trouble fitting in; I just had trouble finding out where I really wanted to be.

Be yourself. I had this three-week period where I wore this straw fedora. I thought it was what chicks wanted. And then it dawned on me that I was trying to be something that I wasn't, so I took the fedora off. So be yourself.

Like so many kids, I just wanted to fit in, and I see now that I spent most of my life trying to be what I wasn't, trying to get people to like me.

Get to know the real you, rather than try to look like or dress like those around you.

Often we're recreating what we think we're supposed to be as human beings. What we've been told we're supposed to be, instead of who we authentically are. The key about the creation of full self-expression is to be authentically who you are, to project that.

I think there's a lot of pressure on young people to really be the thing that everyone is telling them that they are, opposed to discovering it for themselves.

When you have a lot of people telling you what you are and perceiving you in a certain way, it's difficult to find your own identity.

I don't feel I have to be Jackson Browne. Still, I like to say something.

I spent so long trying to be other people, and it made me really deeply unhappy.

For a long time, I consciously tried to be a good person for others. Not anymore. Caring about other people keeps me in line, but I've decided to just be myself.