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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.

Benjamin Clementine

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Benjamin Clementine
Age: 35
Born: 1988
Born: December 7
Musician
Pianist
Poet
Singer-Songwriter
London
England
Read
Blake
School
William
Young
George
Anything
Amazing
Live
Started
Book
Books
Trying
Start
Orwell
Understanding
Memorize

More quotes by Benjamin Clementine

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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.
Benjamin Clementine
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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.
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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.
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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.
Benjamin Clementine
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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.
Benjamin Clementine
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I'm not dismissing prostitutes, but a lot has changed. This so-called gentrification, it can never be stopped.
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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.
Benjamin Clementine
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Some people will never be able to get their real self, but that's fine, because their fake self is also part of them.
Benjamin Clementine
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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.
Benjamin Clementine
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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.
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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.
Benjamin Clementine
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[My music] is opposite to fashion.
Benjamin Clementine
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People take things too literal in the Bible and it's totally wrong.
Benjamin Clementine
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You can't judge people by their cover.
Benjamin Clementine
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We're all competent in different ways, we've just got to find a way to push ourselves up more.
Benjamin Clementine
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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.
Benjamin Clementine
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We have the real self and the false self, there's nothing wrong with them, and everyone has both of them.
Benjamin Clementine
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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.
Benjamin Clementine
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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.
Benjamin Clementine
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Happiness is overrated and money can't justify it.
Benjamin Clementine