Alessia Cara Quotes

You can do anything and be a star. You can dress like however you want, and you can do whatever you want. If you wanna wear meat suits like Lady Gaga, good. She's freaking amazing! She's doing that, and she's unbelievable. I can wear T-shirts and still be great, too. So that's just what I'm proving to people.

I was a very strange child.

I think patience is the best thing to try to embrace.

If I'm experiencing a different thing every day and seeing a new environment every day, it can create a different mood or different feeling.

I wanted to get through high school anonymously.

I feel like my whole life, I've had to prove myself to so many people because I'm young and because I'm a female; it's just constant. I'm always surprising people.

Music was something I found on my own. I got my first guitar when I was around 10, and it just all developed over time.

The fact that people are embracing me so well as a new artist and being taken so seriously is something I'm really surprised by.

I feel New York is too crazy for me, especially when you go to Times Square.

I don't know how to talk to people I don't know.

I don't really dance. I don't drink or smoke. Being at parties is very awkward.

I don't want to have one hit, one song of the summer, and then have me disappear forever. I really want my things to last, and I want my songs and my bodies of work to resonate with people. I want to hit people - at least make a dent in them. I want to make a mark somehow.

I was always told that music isn't a 'realistic' path to take, and like a normal human being, I doubted myself over and over because I was afraid of failure.

YouTube is my first love.

Other than the 'Sesame Street' soundtrack, which I was obsessed with, the first artist I really felt I'd discovered on my own was Amy Winehouse. She was the first female artist I wanted to write like and sing like and be like.

I've never really aspired to the spotlight; I just wanted to do music, which is kind of weird because music comes with that spotlight.

Every time I sing, it it's a reminder to myself that I have to be confident.

My house was very strange. I didn't do things other kids did because my parents were very strict - I stayed at home, quiet in my room.

I don't want to be cliched, but Buckingham Palace is beautiful, and the old red telephone booths are really interesting to me. I've always wanted to see those.

I'm not extremely outgoing, but I'm average, I think. When people meet me they'll say, 'Oh you're not that shy ... ' I never said I was! I see where they're coming from because my biggest single was about being shy at a party - I get it. But it's not 100% accurate.

I guess people don't think that young girls or young artists have opinions, but I'm so glad that there's artists like Lorde and Raury and Kehlani because they're showing other people that young people can have an opinion and a voice and do really well with it. I'm glad I can be one of those people.

'Looking For Alaska' by John Green is a very great book. I feel like every teenage girl says John Green's 'Fault In Our Stars,' but 'Looking For Alaska' is better.

The first time I sang in front of an audience, I was about 14 - it was at my guitar school's showcase, and there were about 30 people there. I was so nervous, but I did it.

Ninety per cent of my family are hairdressers, and the other 10% are construction workers.

Singing was something I always did. I really don't remember a time when I wasn't singing, even as a little child.

I want everything, no matter what concept or genre, to feel real, because it is real. I want to keep making real music, I hope people remember me for that, that's a good thing to be remembered for.

YouTube was a way for people to hear me and for me to say, "Hey, I can sing this song, I'm not in front of you yet because I'm too shy, but here's how I sound for now."

We all act like we know everything in life, but nobody really does. That's what I want people to realize. For me, I know that I'm the same person. Nothing has changed. My family and friends know that.

The only thing I'm really, truly good at is music - I just love it.

I barely have time to think. But the best way to stay grounded is to take it one day at a time.

I think that my music is really empowering. I just want people to know - especially young people, but really everyone - that you don't have to be so caught up in what everyone else is thinking. You don't have to be the coolest, most popular person. You can just be you and be vulnerable.

As a kid I would always be in my bedroom constantly staring at the same four pink walls in it, aspiring to do all of these things. I had big dreams, and my dreams were bigger than what my life was at the time. I didn't understand why my life wasn't more interesting, but I was so oblivious to life outside of my bedroom because I was always there. I had to go about living my dreams.

I always told myself that if I was going to be given a voice, I might as well say something worth listening to and not something that's just going to feed people stupidity.

I feel people are seeing me as a true artist rather than a singer, or an entertainer, or a girl who just makes songs.

I first picked up a guitar when I was ten years old; my parents surprised me with it for my tenth birthday. I started taking lessons when I was thirteen, but only for a few months, and then I just kept teaching myself.

It's hard to be taken seriously if you're a young, female artist making pop music; you never know how people are going to react.

In second grade, I told a bunch of kids there was a homeless person living between the portable classrooms outside our school. It caused panic, and the principal had to announce on the P.A. system that no one was living there. I pretended I didn't know who started the rumor.

I was always so scared to sing in front of people. That was kind of my weird thing.

As long as each song makes somebody feel something, I think that's the point of it all. I don't want it to just be background music, you know?