A Quote by Iris Dement

I don't know what other people are like, I haven't been able to crawl inside anybody else. — © Iris Dement
I don't know what other people are like, I haven't been able to crawl inside anybody else.
I love being in cities with lots of other people, because I'm reminded that there are billions of people like me, and we are each stuck inside of our minds, feverishly trying to crawl out to make connections with other people.
You have to know that you're the best whether anybody else tells you that or not. And that you'll be around, in one way or another, longer than anybody else. Somewhere inside of you, you have to believe that.
Some people are called to be a good sailor. Some people have a calling to be a good tiller of the land. Some people are called to be a good friend. You have to be the best at whatever you are called at. Whatever you do. You ought to be the best at it – highly skilled. It's about confidence, not arrogance. You have to know that you're the best whether anybody else tells you that or not. And that you'll be around, in one way or another, longer than anybody else. Somewhere inside of you, you have to believe that.
You can never satisfy other people, I learned. End of the day, it's extremely important that you know yourself better than anybody else, and if you can do that, it doesn't matter what anybody thinks about you, good or bad.
Now, I'm a dad, I'm an adult. I've been solo for 25 years; I've been in other people's groups but I'm solo [in a broader sense]. I stopped comparing myself to other people's maps when I was maybe 24, really. The trajectory that I've gone on is not one that I can compare with anybody else.
I don't think I'm very much like anyone else, really. I'm sure there are aspects of other actors that I share, but I don't see anybody else and go, "Damn, they stole my thing." I'm me, and I like that there are people who have an appreciation for that.
As a performer, I'm constantly fascinated with the idea of being able to know what anybody else's experience is, and how misleading all informatives, like appearance, can be.
I feel like I've been able to live a dream life, but my view of things is absolutely inside behavior about how I behave and how I count on other people behaving.
We can see that the complexity we witness inside the African-American community today has always been there. Black people were just as noble and just as ignoble as anybody else.
I'm pretty good at fleshing out characters. I like to crawl inside their minds and imaginations and sort of loll about. Sticking to a clean narrative arc gives me some troubles. I've been told that I'm digressive and I'd have to agree. The odd anecdote that in no way relates to the "big idea" is just as illuminating and fascinating to me as anything else pertaining to the through-line.
It's just hard to look at yourself and guess how you're going to be perceived by other people sometimes. I do my best to let people know that I'm approachable, but I'm a human being just like anybody else. Sometimes people forget that. They forget that you're a person and they treat you like this celebrity thing. But I have to be patient with that, and I try to be.
When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish - people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people - and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.
My brother and I have been able to get on and have been very lucky to do things with our family that other people wouldn't have been able to do. But then again, we've also been able to live a normal life as well.
The title 'black swimmer' makes it seem like I am not supposed to be able to win a gold medal, I am not supposed to be able to break the Olympic record, and that is not true, as I work as hard as anybody else, and I love the sport, and I want to win, just like everybody else.
I mean the reason that I started writing close to home, "Santa Fe," et cetera, was a kind of looking back on past events. I don't know, it's just some of the dark spaces I've been. And it feels like with a music career and whatnot, I've been able to crawl out of those places. So it's interesting to look back on them and try to hold on to the feeling of what you went through.
I get mad like anybody else does, but being able to laugh about getting mad is very healthy, and my kids know that.
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