Audre Lorde Quotes

2020 for me is a really big year of realness and authenticity and just being who I am.

I was fine being in the closet at the beginning of my career because that's what you were supposed to be - until I realized that it didn't serve anybody, and I was left feeling utterly empty. This is who I am, so I've gotta be me.

It is when I am working that the real me comes out - that is when I am the most real and honest.

How I set myself apart is by creating the sort of real and honest music, which is who I'm also trying to be.

From a place of truth, I think artists or actors have to be real with what they're doing.

I don't think I push boundaries. I find that other people feel that way. To me, it's just about going up there and speaking the truth, whatever that is.

However, I've learned in my life that life is about living authentically. And for me, the best moments as I look back in my life, that I became the best versions of Jeannie that I'm proud of, was when I was honest with myself.

I felt like a failure for so long because I wasn't able to access myself in the way I knew I would have if I was going to make music that mattered. I knew I was going to have to learn how to be honest.

The first sentence of the truth is always the hardest. Each of us had a first sentence, and most of us found the strength to say it out loud to someone who deserved to hear it. What we hoped, and what we found, was that the second sentence of the truth is always easier than the first, and the third sentence is even easier than that. Suddenly you are speaking the truth in paragraphs, in pages. The fear, the nervousness, is still there, but it is joined by a new confidence. All along, you've used the first sentence as a lock. But now you find that it's the key.

I just do my thing and try each show to be more honest about why I am and who I am. It's quite tricky and actually nerve-racking to do that. It's kind of a happy train wreck.

'Birdman' came from a very beautiful side of me, from a part of honesty and surrender about things.

Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying.

I had everything I'd hoped for, but I wasn't being myself. So I decided to be honest about who I was. It was strange: The people who loved me for being funny suddenly didn't like me for being... me.

When I stopped hiding who I am, I started writing hits.

I always write what feels really true and honest and me.

I think what I would say to my younger self, and probably to younger, just starting-out writers is that a lot of times you're just afraid to put yourself out there, and it's uncomfortable because it's working up the courage to do something, to push yourself to do those things.

I have to live authentically at all times. And that's part of what makes me an artist. I'm not scared to do that.

I try to be as honest and open as I am with everything that I do because it's just, um, It helps me, you know, like whether it's stand up or singing or act. I just try to stay true.

I want to show people all of me, because that's what I haven't been doing. To be able to play so many instruments, and no one's ever seen me play, it seems like someone who's bluffing.

The most valuable thing I can share is the importance of living in truth. Sometimes, facing those truths can actually be your worst fear.

Do whatever it takes to convey your essential self.

It's that beautiful thing to love your weaknesses, your insecurities, and then put them all on blast. That's why I started writing, and that's why it was so hard to do it in public.

I can be Erykah the human being more than the celebrity.

I'm always looking for something that's real and that's got meat on it. I think it's artistic suicide if you're too vain, or if you're afraid to play ugly. I would never fall for that.

The more I push myself to really live and really experience things and step outside of my comfort zone, the more the songs are allowed to flow.