Benjamin Clementine Quotes

When I started playing music, I was more of a character. Now I'm just me with a cool outfit on. I'm more comfortable being myself.

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.

On the first album I was saying, that's just one part of me. And then I was thinking, well, am I going to hide the rest of me now just because I'm afraid of something? No. I'm just going to be myself.

My hair was so much a part of my personality and all my photo shoots. I hid behind my hair. And then, I just decided I was okay with myself. To have short hair and really show my face is even more revealing than anything. It's a statement - not to everyone else, more to myself. I'm just ready to get out from behind my hair and be myself.

The ideas I'm working with are ideas I'm committed to. I don't know how to soft-shoe them. I don't know how to make them more palpable. I just never knew how to be one of those girls. I wish I knew how to be that sometimes, but I don't know how to be that way.

People are trying to find an outlet to tell their truth.

There was a while when I got really bad stage fright and I basically felt...I was incredibly angry. I felt like everything had been taken away from me and it was at that point that I realized how much doing stand up reminds me of my self love and curiosity about myself and love of other people because I don't go on stage to dominate.

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.

When people say 'I want to be like you', I tell them if you want to be like me, then be yourself.

We're afraid of letting people see the glory of who we are.

Becoming yourself is really hard and confusing, and it's a process. It's often not cool to be the person who puts themselves out there.

I think that ties in with issues of identity as well - that sometimes there are parts of us we want to hide, and then there's other times we say, "You know what? Nope. Done hiding that part."

It was during this [as a kid] time that I came out of my shell vocally and performance wise, I learned how to really and truly sing in a different way.... my way. It was an amazing experience because I also realized my lifelong dream - to sing my own songs...I have something to say and it was a great release for me to share that part of myself with others.

The truth sets you free. It's a very liberating thing, when you say this is who I am warts and all and then you can just get on with life. It's amazing.

If I had to give one piece of advice to incoming college freshmen, I'd say always be true to yourself.

I felt like I got more comfortable on 'Idol' when I just started being myself and not trying to be what I thought I had to be.

Everything I've written has been personal and touched on things that I needed to deal with in my personal life. So I just feel that writing is great therapy, and the best writing comes from truth, and so I mine my life constantly for that.

Really, as a writer, I believe that if you're going to write about your own life, you need to do it as honestly and candidly as you are capable.

Acting is largely about putting on masks, and music is about removing them.

Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.

All I knew was that I was writing something out of my very guts, and that I was content.

There's something to be said for embracing who you are.

It's taken me years to embrace the softer elements of who I am and let that shine some.

Acting is a very important thing for me, and I love doing it. But when I'm acting, I spend 14 hours a day and months a time being someone else. When I'm singing, I just get to be me.

I take a lot of pride in being myself. I'm comfortable with who I am.