Shakira Quotes

1. I prefer an ugly truth to a pretty lie. If someone is telling me the truth that is when I will give my heart.


2. In this life, to earn your place you have to fight for it.

3. You're a song written by the hands of God.

4. I am trying to make my accent so it won't bother anyone, but I am not going to drive myself crazy trying to pretend I am an American girl when I am from Colombia.


5. I don't go out without make up. I'm a woman, you know.

6. It doesn't bother me to talk about my private life, it doesn't bother me to talk about anything. My life is like a glass of water, transparent.

7. Fame isolates people from reality. That happens to many artists, and I don't want it to happen to me.


8. Everyone can know what is in my heart because I find it hard to conceal myself.

9. I admire Madonna because she always did whatever she felt like doing. She went through some controversial periods when people rejected her, but she kept on reinventing herself.

10. I always believed that women have rights and that there are some women that are intelligent enough to claim those rights. There are some others that are stupid enough not to.



11. I admire a person who, for the love of art, is able to take off their clothes in front of a camera. But I'm not capable, I'm too cowardly for that.

12. I remember the first time I saw the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. I will never forget that day. I just wanted to see Kurt Cobain's face. I had a feeling he was very cute. But, I couldn't see his face. When I finally did see him, he was even cuter than I imagined!

13. I think my dad is the only Arabic descendent who is an unsuccessful businessman.







14. I love reading about history. Sometimes, I feel I was born in the wrong era. There was more creativity in the air when people were still discovering new worlds.

15. I was unaware of the dispute in Brooklyn. I would never knowingly wear any clothes or support any company who produced clothing with alleged wage and labor violations.

16. I want some day to be able to love with the same intensity and unselfishness that parents love their children with.



17. I'm Colombian and nothing will change that.


18. I'm like a mosquito, I love humidity. I don't sweat.

19. I'm lucky to have family around me. Otherwise, I'll be taking the risk of falling in love with myself.

20. I'm more afraid of marriage than death.

21. It's not easy to work with me, I recognize that. It's not easy if those people aren't as perfectionistic as I am.

22. My brain, I believe, is the most beautiful part of my body.

23. My songs are the reflection of how I think and how I feel in that moment. But I'm conscious of the fact that artists have a responsibility before the masses and they have to take care with their words.

24. My team and I have reunited two elements that coexist with difficulty: respect and affection, because when they love you they don't respect you and when they respect you they don't love you.



25. People think I like to expose my body. But I don't. It's just because the dance moves require it.

26. The worst frustration for a singer is choosing a career in making music and then not being able to make music because you're always giving interviews.

27. The worst mistake of a woman is to go to the kitchen, because then she never gets out of there.


28. You can't achieve anything in life without a small amount of sacrifice.

29. Writing songs has a therapeutic effect, and it either kills off love or wins the heart of the lover.

30. Writing in English was a major challenge. I didn't want other songwriters to write for me. I wanted to preserve the spirit of my songs in Spanish. I am the same Shakira in English as I am in Spanish.

31. You want to be skinny and have a good body? You have to work out every day and say no to certain foods.




32. I expect my beloved to be kind, generous, I expect him not to lie so I can look him straight in the eyes, and I expect him to fall in love with me 10 times a day.

33. I'm a believer. I try to be near God, because when I feel that there's a certain distance, everything begins to look like a blur. It makes the road somewhat smoother. When I feel that I'm without God, I have to make an effort to drag my feet to keep on going.

34. The leaders are lacking love and love is lacking leaders.



35. Earlier I tried not to show my stomach, because I thought it wasn't perfect and I would have seemed fat. I would have died! But that does not bother me anymore. Like my dad says there is nothing more beautiful than some meat on the bones.

36. For several years I worried a lot about protecting an image, but today I have understood that the image cannot be preconceived.

37. Lucky that my breasts are small and humble, so you don't confuse them with mountains.






38. I don't like the competition part of soccer. It's a war in short pants. I prefer art.

39. I think that that's why I am probably a romantic and a passionate person. But I also have a very disciplined side, very disciplined and very demanding. Sometimes my sense of responsibility is my worst torturer.

40. This city sounds like jazz. (on New York)

41. I had a big collection of fried eggs that I painted.

42. The opportunity to change the arrangements of the songs, and present them to the audience in a different way - the simplest way, which is the acoustic format.




43. I think that we see war as a virtual thing and we even get to believe that bombs fall on top of cardboard cutouts and stuff like that. They don't. They kill real people, real children, real mothers and millions of innocent people.

44. I just feel that there are always pacifist solutions, and I think that the leaders know the exit to the conflict, it's just that sometimes they don't want to use them. They just want to continue playing their little game of power. And I feel that us people have the responsibility and also the obligation to demand to our leaders to give us the pacifist solutions. To give us a world in peace.

45. You can laugh, but since I was a child I knew that I was going to be a well- known singer/songwriter; that was something I had no doubts about. It was almost like a prophecy.

46. I had my first boyfriend when I was 12, and my parents knew about it. My dad was very jealous. I had an older sister in medical school and he would not let her wear tight jeans.

47. I cannot expect that I will be successful my whole life. We live so caught up in the moment, it's important to get some perspective. Ultimately, I know I've been very lucky.

48. I do feel that there is a difference between - especially the visual part - what I used to do in Latin America and what I do now. This album (Laundry Service) came out and all of a sudden I saw myself surrounded by 20 stylists, makeup artists, hairdressers, directors, assistant to the director, assistant to the assistant to the director. I try to be in control because some of your essence kind of gets a little hurt. That's why it's so important for me to do these live shows. On the stage, there's no tricks, there's no way to fool anybody, so you either like what you see or you hate it, that's it. It's just the bare truth.

49. Colombia is a country of victims and not of murderers.

50. In any woman's life there's a moment when we stand in front of a mirror and we're not happy. It might be when we're 32 and we think about what it will be like being 36, or when we're 36 we might think of being younger. We're never content with the way we are and the way we look. But, if you start loving yourself the way you are, and accepting yourself the way you are, your outlook totally changes.

51. I've gone through everything with the paparazzi, where they are even hanging from the trees trying to get a picture. But I have a wonderful relationship with the press. I don't feel mistreated. There is great communication between me and the media and that makes me feel so lucky because I see how an artist can suffer. But I also live a life a journalist would find very boring. I've been dating the same guy for six years. I'm not a party animal, and you never see me shopping because I hate shopping.

52. When I perform, I find myself exorcised of everything that keeps me trapped in my everyday life.

53. The industry is a bit more visual oriented (more) towards something to the eyes than something to the ears. That's a bit of a contradiction. We can't forget that, at the end of the day, what really matters here is music. I must confess that sometimes I have been a victim of that.

54. I certainly don't want to identify with Cinderella, she had a dream that lasted only until midnight. I want it to last until at least 3 a.m.

55. I think in every artist's life, when, right after a performance, we get to feel a certain loneliness and solitude. After receiving so much attention and love from your fans, suddenly everything stops.

56. I was born close to the ocean and live close to it. I spent all my Sundays on the ocean, and to me it will always be a magical place. I can always find different memories in my head, but special moments were on the ocean or staring at the sea-falling in love, playing, or just talking to myself. It kind of seduces you. But lately I've been fearing it a little bit because of the sharks, the attacks, you know? But then again, they were there first.

57. In some moment, I came to fall into the claws of moralism. Something very typical for a Latin-American woman, who has lived in a culture of repression. I thought I had all the answers, I was full of hasty judgments. Today I feel more liberated and open. I'm more tolerant. I respect ideas different to mine. Moralism is a disease. It shouldn't be exactly related to religion, but it is true that my view of religion has also changed lately.

58. When you fall in love, you prioritize everything. It's like cleaning up and putting things in place.

59. My celebrity arrived gradually and this is why I am not too much shocked or am not traumatized. In spite of that, I am always surprised when I see myself on TV.




60. A bed is still the first thing I look for when I have 20 free minutes. I still read a book if I have a free hour, and go to a movie if I have four.

61. I want to learn how to live in the present with my eyes open. Because, you know, we always go through the present blindfolded with our hearts in the past and our minds in the future. And that way we never enjoy the here and now.

62. Nationalism is cured by traveling.

63. I think I look like a chipmunk.

64. I never went through an adolescence when kids become rebels and do drugs. I was always the good girl.

65. Videos come definitely after the music has been created, but I have always felt, and especially today, that videos are vital in the album process. I think that we live in a very visual era and if you make a mistake with a video, those images will accompany the song forever. There is no way to divorce the image from the music once the video has been filmed and exposed.



66. My belly dancing represents me - it's a trademark. I've tried to incorporate it in original ways in modern songs. But sometimes it bugs me a bit that people resort to (saying) that I'm shaking my ass with a huge sexual charge, instead of recognizing it as a move that, yeah, it's loaded with sensuality, but it's also part of an artistic expression.

67. I am a pop star, but I also have an opinion. I grew up in a country that has existed under the whip of violence for 40 years, so how can I not? You know in my country, a 5-year-old knows not only of Disney and Mickey Mouse but of guerrillas and paramilitaries. You grow up with that kind of awareness, of what the world is really like. To be political in my country doesn't mean you want to run for presidency, to be political simply means to have an opinion.

68. The cobra is deadly but mongoose can overcome it. We all have possibility to defeat prejudiced and resentment in our lives. Fear is the thing that makes us attack, that makes us strike. We must overcome it. We must.

69. I guess there's many ways to become an enlightened human being, but I guess the shortest path is always through love. And the shortest path to becoming a better person is always through loving someone. If you don't know how to treat the ones that you love then how are you going to treat those that you don't know, or those who are your enemies?



70. I have learned that I am an adult already. And to grow with something is sometimes painful. And its great; I don't say it's a bad thing-but many things change, and many more responsibilities come, and you have more closure in your life, and more possibilities. It's just that it's not as pink as before, but its more interesting.

71. I always tried not to touch that subject, because it would really give me existential anxiety. Death is not only related to the physical death of the body, it's also related to the death of relationships or feelings. Every day, I feel a little bit older, a little less alive, more alive with the possibility of being less alive, closer to death.  (on death)




72. I make music and i wear sexy clothes, I don't make poorly lit porn photos in hotels like Paris Hilton.

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