I believe that if you want gender, then you can have it. If you want to label yourself, then sure. If you want to use history to describe who you are, then there is nothing wrong with that. But don't limit me on the way that you limit yourself.
Maybe I'll work for a label someday, write some fiction, nonfiction. Someday I'd like to go back to school and get my teaching degree. I want to be a grandpa. I want to have more kids.
Throughout all of the changes that have happened in my life, one of the priorities I've had is to never change the way I write songs and the reasons I write songs. I write songs to help me understand life a little more. I write songs to get past things that cause me pain. And I write songs because sometimes life makes more sense to me when it's being sung in a chorus, and when I can write it in a verse.
Every one is struggling for freedom-from the atom to the star. The ignorant man is satisfied if he can get freedom within a certain limit-if he can get rid of the bondage of hunger or of being thirsty. But that sage feels that there is a stronger bondage which has to be thrown off. He would not consider the freedom of the Red Indian as freedom at all.
In some parts of the world, you get scrutinized for saying the wrong thing about art and in other regions, you get scrutinized for saying nothing at all.
I write because I have an innate need to. I write because I can't do normal work. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it.
Now I see why reading was illegal for black people during slavery. I discover that I think in words. The more words I know, the more things I can think about. My vocab and thoughts grow together like the stem and petals of a flower. Reading was illegal because if you limit someone's vocab, you limit their thoughts. They can't even think of freedom because they don't have the language to.
I have taken every amount of creative liberty and freedom that I can get and I've actually managed to push it. I would say being the champion gives me that freedom because you really get a little more carte blanche.
I want my daughters to see me and know me as a woman who works. I want that example set for them... I am a better mother for it. The woman I am because I get to run Shondaland, because I get write all day, because I get to spend my days making things up, that woman is a better person - and a better mother. Because that woman is happy. That woman is fulfilled. That woman is whole. I wouldn't want them to know the me who didn't get to do this all day long. I wouldn't want them to know the me who wasn't doing.
Motorists who want to save money on gas will demand and buy more fuel-efficient vehicles. We should not limit their freedom with more government regulations.
It takes me about three years to write a book. They're very complex, and they take a lot of research, but also because the more popular your books get, the more popular you get, and people want to haul you off and look at you.
I roll out of bed in the morning, whenever I want, and I work right away because, to me, that's the life. That's freedom. The whole point for me is that I love the freedom of being an entrepreneur that I do what I want to do when I want to do it.
Because of the way my words get scrutinized, I have to use a level of precision so people don't accuse me of misleading them.
Let's be honest: the label of model-daughter-of-celebrity mother is... you know, I don't want to have that label. It's not who I am. It's not my values to go off someone else's name and to be pigeonholed as that. So in a way, that has really pushed me to be more independent.
I'm a business man and the reason I linked up with a major was because I understand they have that reach that I can't get no matter how hot I get in the streets. It's not always about money because I been had money. I want to be on TV and win awards. I want to be number one. You need a label to get through barriers.
Writing is a weird thing because we can read, we know how to write a sentence. It's not like a trumpet where you have to get some skill before you can even produce a sound. It's misleading because it's hard to make stories. It seems like it should be easy to do but it's not. The more you write, the better you're going to get. Write and write and write. Try not to be hard on yourself.