Quotes About Expression

I never really wanted to be a singer. I always preferred to be behind the camera.

Those that know me know that I'm not 100% in love with commercial pop music. It's not my preferred genre - I don't do squeaky clean pop.

I still draw a lot though. Ballpoint pen is my preferred medium.

I've written fiction for as long as I can remember; it's always been my preferred form of play.

I have always preferred paper and ink to a computer screen and I still write most of my lyrics by hand.

I create from a place of passion. It's like a pregnancy, where you create from a place of passion, and then it grows, and then before you know it, you want to push that baby out.

I despise pregnancy.

When I have an idea, I'm like a pregnant woman. I just have to deliver.

When I was pregnant, I wanted to take some time off from acting, but I still needed a creative outlet for myself. My first two books were created during my pregnancies and after giving birth to my first child.

I feel that I am pregnant by music, and it is the father and mother of my child.

At the beginning, when you don't look so pregnant, I think it's all about dressing boyish, with jackets and loose layers.

Some people say, 'Well you're a man; how do you write about women or girls when you don't know about them?' Well, I've got my imagination, and I can write about women. Yes, I'll never be pregnant and give birth to children, but I can imagine a bit of what it's like. When you create characters, it's just about making them really real to people.

I deplore any action which denies artistic talent an opportunity to express itself because of prejudice against race origin.

I want people to come to my music without prejudice. I want them to get the music first. And who I am isn't that important. If they like the songs to me that's a good thing.

I have writer friends who go to the premiere of a film with their name listed as the writer, but they are shocked: 'That's not what I wrote!'

Nobody owns comedy. Nobody owns a premise. Nobody owns an idea.

Every time you get on a stage or in front of a camera, the whole exercise is about imagination. You're constantly depicting something that doesn't exist, and trying to find the reality of it. Once you settle on that premise, everything else is a matter of degrees.

I've tried to write about Heathrow before and been escorted off the premises.

A lot of people, especially Christians, want to put you in this box of being a Christian actor, and I don't believe in it. You do yourself and everyone else a big disservice when you start thinking about it as 'Christian art.' That's why most Christian art is bad. They don't put a premium on the 'art.'

It was less a literary thing than a linguistic, philosophical preoccupation... discovering how far you can go with language to create immediate, elementary experience.

You'll be fooled if you only get your hip-hop from the mainstream, you know. The things that move people are not just found in the mainstream cultures. And when we talk about hip-hop in general, hip-hop's basically preoccupied with life.

I think that different actors go about their preparation differently, but when it comes to acting, I use my imagination.

Music is a very big part of my preparation as an actor.

Losing yourself in the character opens you up in a way that no amount of precise preparation can.