“We’re all competent in different ways, we’ve just got to find a way to push ourselves up more.”

That’s how I always try to start my thoughts. I write them down first, eventually it turns into a poem, and if I feel like composing something to it, then I do that.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[My music] is opposite to fashion.

In 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.”

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.

We have the real self and the false self, there’s nothing wrong with them, and everyone has both of them.

When you look at the media and television, and all this Hollywood stuff, you just judge people.

I know that New York is big, there are huge buildings, but in fact, it’s quite small and contained.

I have met a few people, who are so respected in the fashion industry and all around the world, and are still very humble. People who have it all but act like they only just started, it’s beautiful. This is what I want to be.

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.

I was lucky to have read a lot of poetry when I was younger; it helped me to remember a way to write.

I’m not dismissing prostitutes, but a lot has changed. This so-called gentrification, it can never be stopped.

There’s this really awesome theory of human motivation – that human beings all want three things. One is to be competent, one is to belong, and one is be free, as in to have choice: to not be told what to do but to choose what to do.

A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything.

Hope is such an important component to moving forward and getting past the difficult times.

As a woman of color, I always have to be at 150 percent and better than everybody in the room to be considered competent.

A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.

To handle the economy and services in a country like Iraq requires delegation of authority and the choice of competent people.