Derrick Jensen Quotes

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.

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.

When I was 19 or 20 and doing my thing, I can't sit here and say I had this strong political agenda - I was literally just being myself.

You have to be somebody before you can share yourself.

Before tomorrow, make a list of your traits. Make YOUR list - who you are and why. Then ask yourself this question: where did it come from? Are you the way you are because it is what you want... or what they want? Are you a product of your imagination or someone else's? Think about it.

You've got to show the world who you are before it tells you. Otherwise you become victim to someone you're not.

I change my style maybe every month. I'm, like, punk one month, ghetto fab the next, classy the next. I'm just young and finding out who I am.

In my life and my work, I really try to be just fully myself.

I don't sing very loud, which some people have given me trouble about, but we all have to figure out what our voices are, embrace that.

What I've come up with is that I just need to be me.

I don't feel I have to be Jackson Browne. Still, I like to say something.

I just like showing people - and this might be at the root of everything that I've done - that I don't want to be looked at as a baseball robot.

I believe in just being yourself, and the whole kit and caboodle comes with it.

Everyone always said, 'When you're 10, you'll want to be Elizabeth, or when you're in college.' And every time, I was was just like, 'No, I'm Beanie. That's who I am.' So I love my name because I think it really suits me.

All my work is not personal - I've been trying to get away from that into the true self underneath all the tastes and things we think make up a self.

I think songwriting was the biggest way that I found my identity.

When I was a kid, my mother used to say, 'You always want to be different.' I couldn't work out what she meant. I was just trying to be myself.

Growing up in the Raleigh theater scene was a big factor in developing the ability, which I have now, to be freely me.

I am who I am. I'm unique. I'm my own self.

I like to indulge all the facets of my personality. There's none that I don't think, in a way, I would want to take away from.

I want to continue to show what I'm all about.

Having to stake out your identity and have people question whether or not you're being yourself was a tension that I could relate to.

Swavey is the movement. Three words... It's Unique, it's true, and it's yourself. It's a very unique thing: it's true to yourself, and it's all about you just being yourself.

I don't want to change how I am, how I play, so if it means taking more risks, it's always going to be the case, and that's fine for me.

When you're growing up, the most important thing is to try to not change yourself too much. Be you, because everyone else is taken.