If something comes that it is so extreme that you have difficulty thinking of it as a good thing, don't think of it as a good thing and kid yourself. To the extent that you can, don't label it a bad thing. Refusing to label something a bad thing opens you up to possibilities you would not have even considered otherwise.
I think I'm a living embodiment of, 'Don't try to push me around or squash me,' whether its how I talk to a record label or in my relationships.
What I write, if you have to label it, is crossover, and I think that much of the stuff that is called children's or YA is in fact crossover and is equally valid for anyone who likes to read fantasy.
If you're making a film about a band or a songwriter or whomever, there's a publisher, there's a record label, and there are people who are vested interests in that film. But with back-up singers, because they did stuff for everybody, there's no one party that has any vested interest in seeing the story told.
People are like, 'Wow you started your own record label,' and treat me like I'm some sort of innovative genius, when I'm not at all. You've got the Internet and music - you put them together, and people hear your music.
I wanted a label that reflects the times... a center for artists who want to express themselves. That's what makes Interscope unique. It's about freedom.
Even with whatever people want to label me with, there are so many other sides to me.
Christianity is a lifestyle. And being a Christian is more than a label.
In Atlanta, with a large African-American population, Sosa is often considered a black man. In Miami and Los Angeles, with larger Hispanic populations, he is a Latino man, and the black label is rejected as robbing Hispanics of a hero.
I do feel Scottish in some way. Maybe it's to do with visiting my grandparents here every summer as a child, but I am aware of my Scottish ancestry. It's there all right, but it would be pushing it to label me a Scottish painter. Or, indeed, an anywhere painter.
People like to pigeonhole. People like to label - not just books and movies, but everything in their life. If people want to call me 'literary horror,' I guess that's fine. What I'm trying to do is be both thrilling and thought-provoking.
I was invited to L.A. when I was 16 for a weekend-long songwriting session by a writer I had met through my voice teacher in Pittsburgh. My first hit, 'Hide Away,' was one of the songs written during those sessions. It was played for a radio rep who then started a new label; the song got a pretty organic start at radio and then took off.
There is a diversity of thought and philosophy, diversity of languages and dialects, diversity of political spectrum, and there's a diversity of taste for food. I don't label or characterize Jews in any way.
The historical Woodrow Wilson suffered from numerous complaints which we might today label as psychosomatic. Yet, Wilson did have a stroke as a relatively young man of 39 and seemed always to be ill. He was 'high-strung' - intensely neurotic - yet a charismatic personality nonetheless.
I could more label myself as even a spokeswoman for happiness!
At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.
It's really hard because obviously people label you as a British East Asian actor. And I'm just from Salford; it's where I was born.
I get bored easily, so I need to do a lot. I've started a record label, so I get to nurture new talent and talk about music, which is a passion of mine. I've written another book. And I get to come to work and do the TV show, which is always really fun.
Observe yourself as you go through a typical day. Stuff happens to you. As it does, you immediately judge it and label it. Dozens of times. Hundreds of times. So often that you no longer recognize that you're doing it. It is a deep-seated habit.
It's weird to me when an artist comes in, and the label says, 'We want him to sound like Chris Brown,' but he says he wants to sound like Sean Paul. There's a huge disconnect - it's like we're making a product.
Leonard Chess passed, and that was the end of the Chess label for that time.
For a person who is very much involved with the institution of religion but has lost the religious spirit, the 'religion' label is the real threat to liberty.
Because the pop industry is cruel, if you don't do everything the label wants you to do, it has an army of other people waiting to do it.
The power of a label and radio and a booking agency and all that - you never know until you experience it the first time, but being able to have a song on radio, but then go play a show for people that have heard the song on radio, and having it sung back to you, is - I don't know how to describe it.
A sociopath is just a label and doesn't encompass the entire being of a person.
Orange juice from concentrate is labeled. Food coloring Red #5 is labeled. Fish are labeled as to whether they've been previously frozen. To a consumer, there's no plausible reason why these factors should be on a food ingredient label while the presence of GMOs shouldn't be.
I don't know that you can put a label on growth. I'm just me.
I've never conformed to what my record label has said and, yes, that has meant that it's been a long journey for me.
I think sometimes soap acting gets an unfair label for being bad and over the top. The lessons I learned there were so valuable. Seeing yourself every day on television, you learned what worked and didn't work, what was bad acting and what wasn't. Memorizing scripts became second nature.
I'd love to do a fashion label in the future. I've been thinking a lot recently about maybe making a line of little dresses, so maybe one day.
I think what hurt me all along was the label of 'war-time pitcher.' I've always resented that.
My label understands that I am really attached to Malaysia, that I come home a lot.
I used to regard genres as being embedded in cliches, and I always felt funny about the need we have to label things. But I'm happy to think of 'Starred Up' as a prison drama, although we tried to smuggle in some elements of family drama in there.
What I learned from the Beastie Boys was to be independent. They set up their own world separate from the label. They built their own studio.
The mark, to me, of a constructive argument is one that looks at a specific problem and says, 'What shall we do about this?' And a nonconstructive one is one that tries to label people.
There was a moment, a few weeks after I signed, that it actually hit me. I was signed to a major label.