Christina Aguilera Quotes

The pressure of looking a certain way and having to present yourself a certain way is hard. It's difficult to feel genuine about yourself when you feel the pressure of being a certain person.

There's a constant anxiety that comes from having an innate sense of self, yet existing within a homogenised, aspirational culture.

I'm 19, and, being a public figure, I'm supposed to present myself in a certain way, but it's hard and you're never going to be able to tell people who you are through the media.

Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.

Everyone is being told by society to talk this way, to dress that way, to be this person or to be that person, and it's so important to just maintain a sense of self.

I know intimately the struggle of trying to live your life and be yourself while feeling the pressure of an entire community on your shoulders.

Everybody is in a hurry to decode you in a certain way, and then they expect you to adhere to their definition. How can they possibly do that when you yourself are finding it hard to discover yourself?

Trapped. Sinking. Can't be myself. Made into what other people expect. Is that everyone's fate? Were the great individualists the products of their friends who wanted a great individualist as a friend?

It's so easy to get caught up in what people expect of you. Sometimes, you can just lose yourself.

Whether at work, at home or in public, we have been trained to believe that who we are at the core of our being is often unacceptable. As a result, we work diligently to live up to - and sometimes down to - what others have made us out to be, whether or not it is an accurate reflection of who we are.

The hardest thing about being in this business is just being able to be yourself. People act like there's this one set of rules to follow to be a pop star and I think, 'Well, you say I'm a pop star, so maybe that's not true.'

If you're always under the pressure of real identity, I think that is somewhat of a burden.

I refused to conform to an image that a lot of people thought a president's brother should adopt.

It can be frightening to turn your back on what others think is right. But I'm not the same as a lot of people - I'm quite artistic and quite eccentric sometimes. If you honour that, you fit into yourself better - and people accept you for what you are.

I am doing things that are true to me. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled.

All I want to do is be normal. But really, it's other people who won't let me be that way.

I didn't try to copy my dad or fit into the pressure or the mold that everybody tried to make me fit into.

I think there's a lot of pressure on young people to really be the thing that everyone is telling them that they are, opposed to discovering it for themselves.

A lot of people go through life trying to perform normalcy, and I think you can relate to that.

When you have a lot of people telling you what you are and perceiving you in a certain way, it's difficult to find your own identity.

There are so many things that you're supposed to conform to as an actress. Keep your mouth shut. Look pretty. Be a fashionista. I'm not stylish. I don't want to become this character.

I felt so much pressure to come out on other people's terms, you know? I should have come out.

If I try and be something I am not, if I try and be cool, and I am not, I am a boring white man in a suit. Usually a pin-striped suit.

A lot of Asian girls love being basic because it's safe. But the thing is, a lot of my fans are those girls, and they want to be bolder, but there's no one they could look up to and be like, 'It's OK to be that way.'

I like the freedom America has. In Japan people tend to think too much about others' opinions and how to be like everybody else but to Americans it seems more important to be who you are and find your own way.