Iman Shumpert Quotes

I feel like the more real we are, the more people will respect that.

I feel that if I'm going through something, I'm sure someone else is, too. I try to be as honest with myself and others as I can be.

I don't think it's a bad thing to share how you feel, especially if people can relate to it.

I'll never sing something that I've never been through. So even if I didn't write it, I have to have at least experienced it.

People see truth in my films. That's what they react to, and that's what they relate to.

You have an audience that is fairly well grounded in the real world. You serve them and yourself best by making everything as real as possible.

My best advice would be that you have to be vulnerable with each other. Like, everyone says you have to be honest, you have to communicate; like, yes, of course, but you gotta be willing to be vulnerable.

I primarily have had my career in comedy, and that is something that I have never been too concerned about because I know there is really no room for vanity in comedy. Comedy comes from pain and it is a lot easier to empathize with somebody who is out of shape.

I'm all about showing people that I'm a little messed up, I have a lot of the same problems you have. By exposing myself and putting myself out there, people can relate to me and my act won't grow stale. I mean, nobody wants to hear a comedian say, 'Life is great.'

I've always been open about my life not because my story is unique, but because it isn't.

Everything is an open book. I don't speak on other people's hardship, but if it happened in my life or something that has been an experience on my particular journey, I'm going to talk about it. That's what my fan base appreciates the most. I'm universal. You can relate to the things I say or that I go through.

As a fan, I connect with realness. Whether it's strong or vulnerable, if it's real, I can connect with it.

I challenge you [other men] to see if you can use the same qualities that you feel make you a man to go deeper into yourself. Your strength, your bravery, your toughness: Can we redefine what those mean and use them to explore our hearts? Are you brave enough to be vulnerable? To reach out to another man when you need help? To dive headfirst into your shame? Are you strong enough to be sensitive, to cry whether you are hurting or you're happy, even if it makes you look weak? Are you confident enough to listen to the women in your life? To hear their ideas and their solutions? To hold their anguish and actually believe them, even if what they're saying is against you? And will you be man enough to stand up to other men when you hear "locker room talk," when you hear stories of sexual harassment? When you hear your boys talking about grabbing ass or getting her drunk, will you actually stand up and do something so that one day we don't have to live in a world where a woman has to risk everything and come forward to say the words "me too?"

I try to write life and not songs. People live life, and when you write life, you're going to mess around and touch somebody's heart, and they'll relate to you and what you're singing about.

There's this stress that is relieved when you realize somebody understands, and that's only going to happen if you feel the person who's writing the book or the people in the TV show aren't holding back.

I figure I'm just one of many people. I'm not that different from anybody else, and I don't have great language, highfalutin' language - I'm very ordinary. So I figure if I write about myself, other people with similar feelings and experiences would go, 'Oh, that's me.'

One thing about America is Americans are real people. So it's like, if they see that you're real, this is real, then they're gonna relate to it.

I've been honest with a lot of the problems I've had in life. Everybody has problems. They can relate to that.

I'm genuine, and I think people can see that when they watch.

As a songwriter and as a vocalist, Adele is amazing. You have that. But then there's something about her that's just very honest. I feel like so many people across the board can relate to her and who she is. She's just so appealing and very real.

As wild and raunchy as Richard Pryor was, people related to his honesty because they found something in their life that they understood.

Overstating America's issues doesn't make us relatable; it makes others' issues easily dismissable.

I'm a big fan of honesty and being real, so to me, it seemed like Wynonna was a very human character in a very supernatural circumstance. I was like, 'I can do that!'

My music is straightforward because I want to give people me and let them know they're not alone in going through the things that they go through.

I suppose my job is to describe spaces that are honest to me. And the goal, I suppose, is that the listener can hear themselves in some way in that song and also, in some way, hear me. And so if the listener is able to identify with my honesty then I'm being the most helpful I can possibly be.