Nathan Englander Quotes

I do not say think as I think, but think in my way. Fear no shadows, least of all in that great spectre of personal unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy.

I always wanted to go against hat grain because it was too restricting.

I didn't try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

I've always wrestled against being typified in one way or another.

Everyone's supposed to stay in their lines and be neat. 'You're a rapper. You're supposed to rap, carry a boom box, wear chains, and go to the club - that's all you do. What are you doing collecting art? What are you talking about? Wait a minute, you're getting out of the zone.' People hate when people cross lines.

If one day I could get out of here, I would allow myself to be crazy. Everyone is indeed crazy, but the craziest are the ones who don't know they're crazy; they just keep repeating what others tell them to.

I think when your parents are as rebellious as mine were, it's difficult to top them. So what's the point?

At the Harvard Business School, I really felt I had gained the ability to resolve difficult issues. But I also felt that I wasn't in the mainstream with my fellow students. During job-hunting season, for example, everybody shaved their beards for interviews. I thought, 'This is crazy.' So I grew a beard.

Songs don't have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I've done is about alienation... about where you fit in society.

How do you rebel in a family of rebels? That's the age-old question. I guess I could have by not going into the arts, but the thing is, I couldn't do anything else.

I know my body. What happened is that I got so caught up in the applause I forgot how I should dance. All my life I've been what others wanted - in dancing and in life. Now I'm doing it my way.

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

I got to the point where I was fed up with so many people telling me how and who I was supposed to be.

I just get really bored with sticking to the norm and having the proper conservative image. That's just so not me.

The inner me was always under attack by authority, by the way my parents wanted me to be brought up, by these English schools I went to. So I've always felt this kind of anti-authoritarian strain in me, pushing to express itself despite the obstacles.

Unless you hit your television with a sledgehammer, you're not going to be able to be an individual.

Fitting in is boring. But it takes you nearly your whole life to work that out.

I think there's a sort of satisfaction in defying people's expectations.

I was a brownie for a day. My mom made me stop. She didn't want me to conform.

The young always have the same problem – how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another.

I just realized one day that I was so unhappy. And not only that, but I didn't even like the person that I was. I didn't even know who I was. And so 'Shatter Me' is about first discovering what was under the shell and then learning to love that person that was under it. And then not being afraid to break free.

Conformity is painful. You know, it's too tight. Conformity leads to rebellion. So a desire for happiness is in direct conflict with a desire for freedom.

I needed to be sexier. I needed to be more hip. I needed to be more edgy and this and that. 'No, don't write that kind of song, write this type of song. No, don't work with that producer, work with this producer. No, don't wear those clothes, wear these clothes.' And I didn't want to be a puppet, you know?

I definitely went through some dark teenage years. I wore black raccoon eyeliner every single day. I would be late to school if I didn't have time to put my eyeliner on.

Everyone is being told by society to talk this way, to dress that way, to be this person or to be that person, and it's so important to just maintain a sense of self.