We’re all competent in different ways, we’ve just got to find a way to push ourselves up more.
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.
More Benjamin Clementine Quotes
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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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The experience that I had in Paris I could never have ever again in my life. This is when I grew up as a young man.
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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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Poetry itself is music. I’m just lucky that I can convert it into music.
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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.
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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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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 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.
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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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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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I know that New York is big, there are huge buildings, but in fact, it’s quite small and contained.
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When I started writing again, especially when I listened to French music and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, I realized that these lots talked about themselves. The greatest artists, they didn’t sing; they only spoke.
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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’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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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.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE