A Quote by Tina Knowles

When I mentor girls, I'll go around the room and ask them what they want to be or do. I've heard so many kids say, 'I don't want to be anything,' which is really shocking, but it's because no one has sat down and asked them.
I don't think there are many kids who sit around and want to be actors. I don't think there are many kids who want to sit around and want to be senators. But so many of us want to be athletes, so we're envious of them, and we put them up on that pedestal.
I don't think there are many kids who sit around and want to be actors. I don't think there are many kids who want to sit around and want to be senators. But so many of us want to be athletes, so we're envious of them and we put them up on that pedestal.
I can tell when I've met a bad journalist when they say, "I've met Madonna," or "I know Marilyn Manson." Because I haven't met anyone I've ever interviewed. I've sat down in the position of an interviewer, and they've sat down in the position of an artist trying to promote a product. We have no relationship. I'm able to ask them questions I'd never be allowed to ask them if we were casual friends. It's a completely constructed kind of situation.
I definitely isolate, but I also always have people in front of me, and I have to be OK with that. I'm in a business where, on the set, you're around two hundred people every day, and if you're high on the call sheet, you sort of set the tone for the set. And you want people to feel appreciated, and you want to ask them how their kids are. You want to talk to people and invest in them and let them know that they're appreciated and heard. But then I do like to just kind of withdraw.
So when this opportunity came up through Elisabeth Murdoch and her company Shine, to be an executive producer and actually be part of the show, I liked the idea because I like the word mentor. I don't want to judge someone. I like sharing my knowledge with my girls, and anything they ask me I'll try to do to help them. Any of my real friends who know me, know that's how I really am.
I really make sure that my girls understand the importance of education. I don't want them to be spoilt and only know private school kids. I want them to behave well by example.
If there's anything you want to ask your parents, ask them before they go, because once they go, they're gone.
Kids, if anything, are harder to write for because they are a more discerning audience. They will not stay with you if you go off on a tangent or if you give them extraneous information that doesn't serve the story. You really have to tell a tight story. You have to give them humor and suspense and believable characters. All those things that adults want too, but you have to be really on your game when you're writing for kids.
Then the carousel started, and I watched her go round and round...All the kids tried to grap for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she's fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off, but it is bad to say anything to them.
I wouldn't do my roles if I really hated it. I've done things I hated, but I didn't go into them thinking I would hate them. I want to have fun. I don't want to go to work and not enjoy it. So if I'm swirling around on some wires, talking to Fred Flintstone, I make it the funnest I can. I also want to be good at it. I don't want to be a crap cartoon character. I want to be proud I'm a vitamin!
Throughout my career, I had a lot of mentors, and I just adopted them. What I found is that, especially if you're young, when you go up to people and say, 'Would you mind being my mentor?,' their eyes widen. They literally step back. What they're thinking about is the commitment and time involved if they say yes. And time is something they don't have. So I would not ask them to be my mentor, but I would just start treating them like it. And that worked very well for me.
I want my kids to graduate from high school. But that's not enough. I also want them to go to college. Why? Because rich people's kids go to college. And if that's good enough for them, it's good enough for my kids. Because you know what? College graduates don't tend to go to jail as frequently as nongraduates.
People can say I am a terrible role model because I swear all the time or that I fight people. Look, I don't want little girls to have the same ambitions as me. I want them to know that it is O.K. to be ambitious. I want them to know that it is O.K. to say whatever it is that is on their mind.
You start to stress yourself out about the people around you. You start to think, like, "What do you really want from me?" And then you forget that you, at some point, asked them for something. At some point you needed them to take you in because you ain't had nowhere to go. And now you turn around and question their loyalty to you, and those were the only people loyal to you. The only people that really loved you are still there, and you tanked on them. I'll never let that happen.
You can say anything you want, yessir, but it's the words that sing, they soar and descend...I bow to them...I love them, I cling to them, I run them down, I bite into them, I melt them down...I love words so much...The unexpected ones...The ones I wait for greedily or stalk until, suddenly, they drop.
Kids take you outside your comfort level because you ask yourself, 'How do I answer that question for them?' You think back to your childhood, and it's like: I don't want to give them that, I want to give them this. My life is my children.
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