Refusal to Conform Quotes

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically... No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

After I made 'Oh Carolina' in the 1990s, the record company wanted me to copy that sound, and I refused.

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.

Nobody's going to tell me how to be different, so stop asking me. Stop asking me what two-plus-two is. Everybody knows two-plus-two is five.

I can only be me. I have a hard time being a chameleon as a singer.

I like to recede away from classifications. You might say that indicates a fundamental lack of commitment. I suppose that's true to some degree.

The group of guys I came up with in the 1990s were very innovative. I remember some of the older guys were complaining about how the music had changed, and they were being left behind. I didn't want to be one of those guys who sat around and complained because they weren't growing and evolving.

I'm not going to stop painting just to take orders.

'Love Tattoo' I recorded without a record company. I'd gotten turned down by the record companies - they said they didn't get me, which is fine, I suppose.

My grandmother, who was simultaneously a woman of manners and verve, fended off marriage proposals until she was 30 because she was having too much fun to settle down.

I have never gone out of fashion. And do you know why? Because I never sought it. When you don't seek it, it's always with you.

This is a country of strong beliefs. Just because some two people say something, people don't bow down.

I'm not cutting my hair because I'm not going to be fake.

An important book for our times, in which one woman's determination and refusal to consent sets an example of courage and honesty.

I don't believe in giving in to old age.

I never faked anything. I never played the Disney game of smiling and being a princess and then suddenly having a hard time, saying, 'That isn't who I really am.'

I'm sort of contrary and stubborn sometimes. When everybody says, 'You have to read this book! You have to read this book!' I'm like 'Oh, I'll get around to it.'

I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity.

I've never thought of it consciously... I say exactly what I think, and very often it's totally politically incorrect. I get, always, chastised for it. So it's not shtick. But I think I'm the one who says, 'The emperor has no clothes.'

I've always taken care of myself, and I'm a non-conformist, so I don't accept the negativity that comes with birthdays.

Sometimes a true original doesn't need to change a thing.

Our success just flies in the face of critics or people who would rather that we just failed... because we didn't fit into the style of the times or our lyrics were too upfront or too earnest or whatever.

I was trying to find out what it was that everybody else understood without giving up my stubborn and hard-won lack of understanding.

I absolutely don't write for women - far, far from it. It's so not what I want to do. Some of the writers, who have helped out at the beginning and end of the process - they're all men - have suggested quite feminine subjects they want me to explore. And I'm always, simply, 'No.' I don't want to do diets, don't want to. I just can't do it.

I collect art, and I drink wine... things that I like that I had never been exposed to. But I never said, 'I'm going to buy art to impress this crowd.' That's just ridiculous to me. I don't live my life like that, because how could you be happy with yourself?