Benjamin Clementine quotes:

I started understanding William Blake and George Orwell more and more. It's amazing how we go to school when we're so young, read all of these books, just trying to memorize them. When you start to live, you don't have to memorize anything.

William Blake is my favorite poet of all time, and he said that he wasn't quite familiar with the sounds of music. If so, he would have been a musician.

Composing was more difficult than writing things down.

If I'm being forced to do something I don't want to do, my real self comes out. But whether or not I'm aware of it, no matter what happens, I'm always going to have a fake self and I'm not going to judge my fake self.

Obviously you live life for yourself and have your choice to believe what you want to believe in, but I know that the Bible can be used to appreciate life.

I think it is all about creating characters, mixing them up with the stars and the light-years, and coming back to Earth, because we're from this universe. We're not just New York or London; we're stars.

I felt like I was homeless anyway, so the change in environment wasn't that much of a big deal. I felt pretty much the same. After six months of living on the streets [in Camden], I started singing, busking.

Happiness is overrated and money can't justify it.

We're all competent in different ways, we've just got to find a way to push ourselves up more.

Confidence came from people. I think I'm very confident in me, as a human being.

People take things too literal in the Bible and it's totally wrong.

I know that New York is big, there are huge buildings, but in fact, it's quite small and contained...

When you look at the media and television, and all this Hollywood stuff, you just judge people.

Even if someone thinks there's a mistake I've made on the piano, to me it's not a mistake; it's how it's meant to be.

I was very rebellious, but my family was strict Christians - they would ask us, "What's the shortest verse in the Bible?" and I was the one who always said "John 11:35" straightaway. It stayed with me, the Bible has stayed with me.

Some people will never be able to get their real self, but that's fine, because their fake self is also part of them.

You can't judge people by their cover.

Poetry itself is music. I'm just lucky that I can convert it into music.

The real self is who you are when you're at home, when you're comfortable, and the false self is what you're pretending - and the reason you pretend is because you want to create a character for the surroundings you're within.

Some people are saying that my music is not for Burberry, it's not for fashion. I know where they're trying to go but if you're saying my music is only for deprived and sad people, then you're not helping me and you're not helping yourself. It's meant to be for everyone.

I have met a few people, who are so respected in the fashion industry and all around the world, and are still very humble. People who have it all but act like they only just started, it's beautiful. This is what I want to be.

On-stage, I definitely want to use my real self because I'm singing to people who believe in what I'm singing, and I believe in what I'm singing, but they shouldn't be fooled because we all have fake selves and it's in there somewhere. It's not pretending to hurt somebody; it's just something that comes out of me, from my experience.

That's how I always try to start my thoughts. I write them down first, eventually it turns into a poem, and if I feel like composing something to it, then I do that.

I'm not dismissing prostitutes, but a lot has changed. This so-called gentrification, it can never be stopped.

I'm from a middle class family but my father squandered all the money, so I didn't really run around with rich people. I was very judgmental towards a lot of them.

I wasn't quite used to writing a diary - I didn't understand why people did it - but I wrote down notes and they went into a poem.

There's a part in every person that has a fake self. We've had this since infancy due to our parents and our upbringing.

[My music] is opposite to fashion.

We have the real self and the false self, there's nothing wrong with them, and everyone has both of them.

I loved English literature - if didn't it would have been hard - but I had to learn it myself. I remembered ways to repeat words, to put more emphasis on certain lines.

I've always been shy, but every time that I sing or I perform, when music comes out of me, it is the only thing I can relate to, it's the only thing I can give.

When I started singing about my life and what I was going through, I felt more confident. It was my own life, I was being myself, I was telling people what was happening.

In fact, I might be confident for the human race because of what the human race has given me. When I was in the street and bars, people always came up to me and said, "Don't stop, keep going."

I like it when cities are melancholic. When it started snowing for example, I felt very lonely. I felt very comfortable and very relaxed. When that happens, I write. So I've been writing, not a lot, but I'm inspired everyday.

When I started writing again, especially when I listened to French music and Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, I realized that these lots talked about themselves. The greatest artists, they didn't sing; they only spoke.

When you have a lot of fake selves, most of the time it's because you haven't had parents around so you try to build characters to protect yourself.

If you've got great parents, once you grow up and have to live by yourself, you're going to create some fake self as you get comfortable wherever you are.

I was lucky to have read a lot of poetry when I was younger; it helped me to remember a way to write.

The experience that I had in Paris I could never have ever again in my life. This is when I grew up as a young man. I was independent. There was no one there to talk to; I didn't even want to talk to anyone. I started to write about what I was experiencing, and I had no choice, so I was never scared.