If you’ve got great parents, once you grow up and have to live by yourself, you’re going to create some fake self as you get comfortable wherever you are.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEIf you’ve got great parents, once you grow up and have to live by yourself, you’re going to create some fake self as you get comfortable wherever you are.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEWhen 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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI’m not dismissing prostitutes, but a lot has changed. This so-called gentrification, it can never be stopped.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEComposing was more difficult than writing things down.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI 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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEObviously 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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEWe’re all competent in different ways, we’ve just got to find a way to push ourselves up more.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEWe have the real self and the false self, there’s nothing wrong with them, and everyone has both of them.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEPeople take things too literal in the Bible and it’s totally wrong.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI know that New York is big, there are huge buildings, but in fact, it’s quite small and contained.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEIf 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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI 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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI 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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEWilliam 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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEIn fact, I might be confident for the human race because of what the human race has given me. When I was in the street and bars, people always came up to me and said, “Don’t stop, keep going.”
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINEI 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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE