Janelle Monae Quotes

Only I keep wishing I could think of a way...to show the Capitol they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their Games.

Bill said, "She is mine." I wondered if my hands would move. They would. I raised both of them, making an unmistakable one-fingered gesture. Eric laughed, and Bill said "Sookie!" in shocked admonishment. "I think that Sookie is telling us she belongs to herself," Eric said softly.

If you have security, you can rebel; if you don't, you hold on to any scraps of it that you have.

They have learned that resistance is actually possible. The holds are beginning to slip away.

I am no longer content to be the scared, obedient schoolgirl. Who are you, a stranger, to tell me what I can and cannot do?

I refuse to act the way someone expects me to.

All my life I been doin' what people tell me to do. Now, I'm telling them.

Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.

It's a great feeling to know that 100 cops want to stop you doing something and they can't.

Don't tell me to watch the beat. You watch me.

I posed nude to show my parents they couldn't dictate to me any more - that I control my life.

I just don't feel like I have to explain myself.

If you stand up and be counted, from time to time you may get yourself knocked down. But remember this: A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.

Neither God, nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical, that promise success .... Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties.... Let your motto be resistance, resistance, resistance!

The great appear great because we are on our knees: Let us rise.

We have the power to turn against our creators.

Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the 'leaders' must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.

At 16, I walked around knowing I'd get chased and attacked for dressing a certain way - I felt I had an undeniable right to be who I wanted to be. My father said to hit them back, but I was never much good at that. So I developed a big mouth instead of a quick right hook.

When I was young, the constraints of Chinese society and my personal timid and cautious nature both drove me to seek a means to go against control. Gunpowder has an inherent uncertainty and uncontrollability and is an important means for me to relieve myself of constraint.

I grew up really being able to stand up to authority.

Please don't tell me what I can't do.

Even me mum can't tell me what to do.

I'm never going to let someone else tell me what I can and can't do.

No one can tell me what to do.

I don't have to explain myself to nobody. Nobody. I don't.