It's funny, a lot of people think I take myself seriously because I come off so serious sometimes. But it's not that I take myself seriously, I take what I do seriously.
I think that deprecation part is a very important aspect because when someone looks into themselves, if they're going to be honest, they're going to see parts that are humiliating as well as parts that they might feel really great about. Take Lucas Samaras again, who made a lot of self-portraits. He makes one self-portrait where he is looking directly into the camera and looks so intense and cool. He says in an interview, "I wanted to present the best version of myself."
The people I grew up around who I really liked were quick on the draw. It always just wowed me. And my mum would make weird funny comments. I can see in myself her self-deprecating, hippie humour. I can't take myself too seriously.
I think people take me as seriously as I want them to. They take me as seriously as I take myself - let's put it that way.
I consider myself an ordinary Muslim who is constantly working to put himself in the framework established by the Koran and the tradition of the Prophet Mohammed. I study the works of experts of jurisprudence, Koranic commentary, hadith commentary, and Sufism.
As long as I continue to take myself seriously, how can I consider myself a saint? How can I consider myself a contemplative? For the self I bother about does not really exist, never will, never did except in my own imagination.
Critics at their best are independent voices; people take seriously their responsibility to see as many things as they can see, put them in the widest possible perspective, educate their readers. I really do think of myself as a teacher.
Adolescents swing from euphoric self-confidence and a kind of narcissistic strength in which they feel invulnerable and even immortal, to despair, self-emptiness, self-deprecation. At the same time they seem to see an emerging self that is unique and wonderful, they suffer an intense envy which tears narcissism into shreds, and makes other people's qualities hit them like an attack of lasers.
I don't consider myself a funny girl, but I do have a sense of humor because I don't take myself too seriously. Taking yourself too seriously, I think, is not right. Life is supposed to be funny. Because if you can laugh about yourself when you made a mistake or when you did something wrong, you can learn from it.
My advice to people today is as follows: if you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out.
I think people are used to people in show business having a lot of hubris. I think I have a normal amount of self-loathing but because I'm in show business it's considered self-deprecation. In normal life I would just be considered your average neurotic.
Some people, I think, think that because I don't take it as seriously as a lot of the girls do, that I frown upon modeling or think it's stupid. I don't at all. This is my life. I would be nothing without this. But I really don't take it seriously.
I think Black people need to take self-esteem seriously.
I don't take myself too seriously, but I take the job very seriously, and I expect people to do the job that they're given because this is about all our people, young and old, and it's an enormous responsibility.
So, one way or another, I found myself in a few movies. I take it seriously when I'm on the set, but I don't take myself seriously as an actor.
I do not think I reinvent myself. Wearing my hair differently or changing my style of dress is playing dress-up. I don't take it too seriously.