The idea that there is a sharp boundary between our true inner selves and the outside world is pervasive but highly questionable. The boundaries of the self might well be more porous than we ordinarily think.
The desert Arab found no joy like the joy of voluntarily holding back. He found luxury in abnegation, renunciation, self restraint. He made nakedness of the mind as sensuous as nakedness of the body. He saved his own soul, perhaps, and without danger, but in a hard selfishness.
That's what hip-hop is - it's about meeting the music where you are, and then you add on top of that. It's about coming at it with your full self.
I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, Self.
It excites me when a person puts their whole self in a song or rhyme, or instrument. It fills me.
If I told my 18-year-old self that one day I'd have a sitcom and a sketch show on TV, I think he'd just drum his fingers and go, 'When? How long is that going to take?'
I would like to be known for honest, relatable writing and stories that that are real. There's just this shift I think is happening in a lot of society right now where being your most real self, however embarrassing or vulnerable or weird that is, is the coolest. I feel like that's what Lena Dunham's about and Amy Schumer's about.
Now, learning how to make a movie is something you can figure out in about an afternoon. The physics of it, the marks, the lights, etc. What's hard to do is to suspend your own feelings of self consciousness. The natural actors can do that; they can become part of a characterization and learn how to maintain it.
I used to worry a lot. I still worry a lot, but not about the things that I used to worry about because my younger self, I didn't regret anything that I ever did... I was happy, and I was free, and I was living it up.
If I had any advice for my 16-year-old self, it would just be to stay strong, because acting is not an easy lifestyle, especially when you are starting out. That being said, it definitely makes it all worth it when it does happen.
I believe that the plight of life and all existence is to master one's self, you know, one day at a time.
Every quality I despise in George Bush is a quality I despise in myself. He is my worst self realized.
I feel that I fell somewhat under that category where I was using fighting to kind of run from my own self to an extent, to kind of numb the things that I thought about myself. When I had fighting taken away, I was forced to look at myself in the mirror and say, 'What are you without fighting?'
Be your true self. Because if you're not, there are consequences to be paid.
