External Expectations Quotes

One thing I've had to realize in my career is that I can't do it all. Sometimes we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to make sure we're writing the next hit. There are other people out there, and that's what they do every day, and they have strengths that I don't have.

I try not to let myself get too wrapped up in the image of whatever my books have become in the outside world.

After my years in Hollywood, I got tired of apologizing for work that really wasn't mine to begin with.

I'm not an awards-driven person in anything. Anytime you do get caught up in that, you usually end up getting whacked.

There's always pressure, from other people and yourself. If you're happy with the looks you're born with, then what are you going to do your whole life? We keep thinking up new things and finding better ways of doing things because we're not happy with what we're given.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.

When I'm writing for other people, I have to play it safe.

Having a track record to live up to and the history of successes had become a hindrance. It becomes harder to break out of what people expect you to do.

When I was young, I used to hear people say, 'He's a golden boy. Look at that guy. Can you imagine what he's going to be like when he grows up?' Well, I unfortunately bought into that. And I hadn't even found myself. Quite honestly, I was running from myself. But I knew how to work Top 40 radio.

It's hard when people are expecting things from you, and all you're trying to do is write songs that you like for yourself.

When I was young, I just tried to please everybody.

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.

You feel pressure when other people's expectations are higher than your own.

Doing makeup was a way to create characters, only I got tired of doing it for other people.

I was stuck in the feeling that one did not--was not justified in being alive unless one was fulfilling other people's dreams, whether they were contractual dreams or the public's dreams, or fulfilling my own dreams and illusions about what I thought I was supposed to be, which, in retrospect, turned out to not be what I am.

I think because there is the constant looming threat of nepotism and judgment, I really tried to separate what I was doing at MTV, my auditions, anything I was doing creatively, from my family.

Sometimes I forget that I'm supposed to keep people entertained because I'm just making music for my lifestyle and for my people who live my lifestyle. We forget that there's a world waiting on us.

In society, there is enormous pressure for us to try and look good, to be politically correct, to say the right things, to be polite and basically to sacrifice ourselves on the way.

What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show. Jacques felt himself growing gloomy again. He was well aware that to live on earth a man must follow its fashions, and hearts were no longer worn.

I will not be a slave to my image, nor will I be a slave to anyone else's interpretations of me.

I might be writing what people expect me to write, writing from that place where I might be ruled by economic considerations. To overcome that, I started working with my dreams, because I'm not so censored when I use dream material.

The thing about the state of hip-hop is that people are too concerned. I don't think that there's a problem with being too concerned about videogames, especially for me, because I'm not in the industry. I'm just a consumer. But hip-hop is constantly like, "What are you doing for the scene?"

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?

I kind of have to take pieces of myself to fit what it is that radio wants.