Beyonce Knowles Quotes

Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything?

There's a lot more to being a woman than being 18 years old on the cover of Maxim magazine.

I think it's nice for women to try to be sexy for their man.

I live by a man's code, designed to fit a man's world, yet at the same time I never forget that a woman's first job is to choose the right shade of lipstick.

I think trying too hard to be sexy is the worst thing in the world a woman can do.

There's a certain freedom that comes when people don't expect you to be sexy.

People should realize women aren't just whores or virgins, I want to see women who are real human beings.

I don't understand women who try to be glamour queens.

I like being a pin-up girl. There's nothing wrong with it.

Some girls are taught to be sexy.

I've always been very girly.

The industry is quite chauvinistic generally. Expectations of women, girls, what they should look like, how they should be, what they should say, what they should wear, how their hair should be, what colour their skin should be.

I don't like the fact that people are put into boxes based on what we look like and what we have to wear. Categories are meant for cookies, you know? Not for humans. And so the fact that I've been able to be successful and do it in a way that's very outside the box, I hope that that makes women feel like they can be beautiful in an authentic way.

The way woman is defined by marketable modeling and commercial standards... It makes me feel alien to myself.

Sometimes females feel like they should act like men, but they should really just be themselves.

Being sexy is just one part of being a woman and an actress. But if the part calls for sexy...

I find the whole concept of being 'SEXY' embarrassing and confusing. If I do an interview with photographs people desperately want to change me- dye my hair blonder, pluck my eyebrows. Then there's the choice of clothes. I know everyone wants a picture of me in a mini skirt, BUT THATS NOT ME. I feel uncomfortable. I'd never go out in a mini skirt. Personally, I don't actually think it's even that sexy. Whats sexy about saying, 'I'm here with my boobs out and a short skirt, have a look at everything I've got?' My idea of sexy is that less is more. The LESS you reveal the MORE people can wonder.

We spoke of ourselves as "emancipated" when we got the vote. Yet we are still slaves to the superficial and the superfluous. We are concerned with the length of our skirts, with the latest lipstick, with the newest thrill in hats. We are impressed by advertisements that insist we must be alluring; we must adopt a time-consuming coiffure, we must spend hours with the "beautician," we must attend fashion shows. As long as women are preoccupied with nonessentials we shall be afflicted with infantilism, passivity, and the eventual disillusionment that results from trivial, unproductive lives.

I never thought of myself as a sex symbol. I just do the cover of magazines. I think it’s really unfair men or people in the world think you can’t be both – you can’t be a sex symbol and a serious businessperson. Who says I can’t be both? Who says I can’t do the cover of Maxim and run a production company? Women are complex. Women are beautiful and intellectual and spiritual and social and entrepreneurial. They’re everything. And I think I’m a great example of that.

I am a feminist. I reject wholeheartedly the way we are taught to perceive women. The beauty of women, how a woman should act or behave. Women are strong and fragile. Women are beautiful and ugly. We are soft-spoken and loud, all at once. There is something mind-controlling about the way we're taught to view women.

It's women who have embraced their own sexuality, it's why women wear makeup, it's why they wear high heels. It's what civilization is all about.

When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.

When I wrote 'My Humps,' I said, 'This is the stupidest thing ever,' but in a good way. I always wondered what it must be like to be a girl, always gettin' pulled on. Maybe she's the smartest genius on the planet, but she's rackin' double Ds with a 26-inch waist and a big ol' ass and no one's ever gonna see her like that because that's the way the world is today.

Women shouldn't iron, ever. It's our wrinkles that make us interesting.

We women should remember that we are much more than just breasts.