Quotes By Lauryn Hill

The danger I faced was not accepted as reasonable grounds for deferring my tax payments, as authorities, who despite being told all of this, still chose to pursue action against me, as opposed to finding an alternative solution.

Nobody's going to force me to do something against my will. What do I owe anybody that I should submit my will to them?

As musicians and artists, it's important we have an environment - and I guess when I say environment, I really mean the industry, that really nurtures these gifts. Oftentimes, the machine can overlook the need to take care of the people who produce the sounds that have a lot to do with the health and well-being of society.

I don't need anybody to market or promote me. If people don't want to hear this music, then it's not for them. You cannot please everybody.

I believe God will make a way.

That strong mother doesn't tell her cub, Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you. She says, Toughen up, this is reality we are living in.

I don't know anybody that's not emotionally unstable or schizophrenic.

From the first time someone says, Who do you think you are? we learn how to repress.

When I have a creative insight, there is a high. I think back in the day, I made music as much as I did because it made me feel so good. I think you could argue that there is a creative addiction - but, you know, the healthy kind.

Hip-Hop isn't just music, it is also a spiritual movement of the blacks! You can't just call Hip-Hop a trend!

People need to understand that the Lauryn Hill they were exposed to in the beginning was all that was allowed in that arena at the time. I had to step away for the sake of the machine. I was being way too compromised. I felt uncomfortable having to smile in someone's face when I really didn't like them or know them well enough to like.

Since those who believe they need a hero/celebrity outnumber the actual heroes/celebrities, people feel safe and comfortably justified in numbers, committing egregious crimes in the name of the greater social ego. Ironically diminishing their own true hero-celebrity nature in the process.

I need to be surrounded by people as passionate and as dedicated as I am.

Reality is easy. It's deception that's the hard work.

I never did anything I'm really ashamed of.

When you're young and everything dramatic is exciting, you start to believe that hype that, in order to be an artist, you have to suffer. I've graduated from that school.

To those supporters who were told that I abandoned them, that is untrue. I abandoned greed, corruption, and compromise, never you, and never the artistic gifts and abilities that sustained me.

We don't want people to have expectations of us, but then we have expectations of everybody else.

I think what people are attracted to about me, if anything, is my passion. People got exposed to my passion through music and song first.

We call ourselves creators and we just copy.

Real religion is no religion at all.

The less I have, the freer I am to do whatever I want to do.

I'm trying to open up my range and really sing more. With The Fugees initially, and even with 'Miseducation,' it was very hip-hop - always a singing over beats. I don't think people have really heard me sing out. So if I do record again, perhaps it will have an expanded context. Where people can hear a bit more.

Be honest, brutally honest. That is what's going to maintain relationships.

I got into direct confrontation with everybody I love.

I had to confront my fears and master my every demonic thought about inferiority, insecurity, or the fear of being black, young, and gifted in this Western culture.

Everything we do should be a result of our gratitude for what God has done for us.

You don't know how much artists go through to make it look so easy. It's all in the practice.

I wouldn't even hold my kids sometimes because I didn't want them to spit up on me when I was dressed for an awards show.

This life is a process of learning.