Encouraging Self-Expression Quotes

I don't want to tell a 15 or 14 year old what they should be doing. I want them to tell me. And that's what I got when I met Justin Bieber for the first time.

Afford every soul you encounter the wide and free passage they need to give birth to the dear expressions they feel are important.

Teachers have to respect the privacy of students' creative life, but at the same time give them a chance to express themselves.

Once you've found your own voice, the choice to expand your influence, to increase your contribution, is the choice to inspire others to find their voice.

I'm always thinking about young people first when I'm writing music. Whenever I can reach that young person and inspire them to go after their own dreams, start their own movement just like I did with Wondaland. Starting their own tribe and showing people that we are not all the same, we're not all monolithic. I think that's what it's all about for me.

What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not by exhortation.

Freedom is a condition of mind, and the best way to secure it is to breed it.

I see too many celebrity kids who can't sing. If you don't have it, give it up, because people are brutal. I never want my kids to feel like they have to live up to what I've done.

Older teens tend to write to me and say, 'Thank you for not writing down to teenagers.'

You cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does, she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath as a narcissus will if you do not give her air enough; she might fall and defile her head in dust if you leave her without help at some moments in her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way if she take any.

If you see a kid in school, who is a little shy ... that's when you should reach out. When you do, you are going to open up a flower and discover something wonderful.

I do think it's getting more and more rare in this country to raise a kid with the attitude that creativity is something valuable. The idea of trying to make the effort to produce something, to put something out into the world, rather than just taking in all the stuff the world's putting out at you.