I was independent. There was no one there to talk to; I didn’t even want to talk to anyone. I started to write about what I was experiencing, and I had no choice, so I was never scared.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEWhen you have a lot of fake selves, most of the time it’s because you haven’t had parents around so you try to build characters to protect yourself.
More Benjamin Clementine Quotes
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I like it when cities are melancholic. When it started snowing for example, I felt very lonely. I felt very comfortable and very relaxed. When that happens, I write. So I’ve been writing, not a lot, but I’m inspired everyday.
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[My music] is opposite to fashion.
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When I started singing about my life and what I was going through, I felt more confident. It was my own life, I was being myself, I was telling people what was happening.
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I wasn’t quite used to writing a diary – I didn’t understand why people did it – but I wrote down notes and they went into a poem.
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When you have a lot of fake selves, most of the time it’s because you haven’t had parents around so you try to build characters to protect yourself.
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I loved English literature – if didn’t it would have been hard – but I had to learn it myself. I remembered ways to repeat words, to put more emphasis on certain lines.
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The real self is who you are when you’re at home, when you’re comfortable, and the false self is what you’re pretending – and the reason you pretend is because you want to create a character for the surroundings you’re within.
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William Blake is my favorite poet of all time, and he said that he wasn’t quite familiar with the sounds of music. If so, he would have been a musician.
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I started understanding William Blake and George Orwell more and more. It’s amazing how we go to school when we’re so young, read all of these books, just trying to memorize them. When you start to live, you don’t have to memorize anything.
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I felt like I was homeless anyway, so the change in environment wasn’t that much of a big deal. I felt pretty much the same. After six months of living on the streets [in Camden], I started singing, busking.
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I’ve always been shy, but every time that I sing or I perform, when music comes out of me, it is the only thing I can relate to, it’s the only thing I can give.
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Poetry itself is music. I’m just lucky that I can convert it into music.
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Even if someone thinks there’s a mistake I’ve made on the piano, to me it’s not a mistake; it’s how it’s meant to be.
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We have the real self and the false self, there’s nothing wrong with them, and everyone has both of them.
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Happiness is overrated and money can’t justify it.
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Some people will never be able to get their real self, but that’s fine, because their fake self is also part of them.
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If I’m being forced to do something I don’t want to do, my real self comes out. But whether or not I’m aware of it, no matter what happens, I’m always going to have a fake self and I’m not going to judge my fake self.
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We’re all competent in different ways, we’ve just got to find a way to push ourselves up more.
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There’s a part in every person that has a fake self. We’ve had this since infancy due to our parents and our upbringing.
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I’m from a middle class family but my father squandered all the money, so I didn’t really run around with rich people. I was very judgmental towards a lot of them.
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When you look at the media and television, and all this Hollywood stuff, you just judge people.
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I know that New York is big, there are huge buildings, but in fact, it’s quite small and contained.
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I was very rebellious, but my family was strict Christians – they would ask us, “What’s the shortest verse in the Bible?” and I was the one who always said “John 11:35” straightaway. It stayed with me, the Bible has stayed with me.
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Obviously you live life for yourself and have your choice to believe what you want to believe in, but I know that the Bible can be used to appreciate life.
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I was lucky to have read a lot of poetry when I was younger; it helped me to remember a way to write.
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Confidence came from people. I think I’m very confident in me, as a human being.
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