Lauryn Hill Quotes & Sayings

I don't want to be religious, I want to be spiritual. Anybody can be religious. Some people jog religiously. You don't want to be that, you want to be spiritual. You want to have a relationship with God as opposed to doing what everyone else does. — Lauryn Hill

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

Love and this close-knit family structure really helped to give me the confidence. To know that you have family to go back to is a help. It doesn't always happen biologically. Sometimes God gives you family in other forms, but I was very blessed. I have a very strong biological family. — Lauryn Hill

Heart, Desire, and Intensity and those have been the three words I kind of latched onto. — Lauryn Hill

We have these images, these icons before us that are not reality. — Lauryn Hill

In my family, there was not an abundance of wealth, but there was an abundance of love. So there was always humor, and there was joy and there was comfort and there was this environment just to have a good time. — Lauryn Hill

I have inner peace. It's a different person. — Lauryn Hill

How you gone win, when you ain't right within? Uh-uh come again — Lauryn Hill

So while you're imitating Al Capone,
I'll be Nina Simone,
And defacating on your microphone — Lauryn Hill

Love is an incredible thing but we don't know love like we should. Unconditional love we don't know it because if a person stops stimulating us, we stop loving them. — Lauryn Hill

I keep letting you back in. How can I explain myself? As painful as this thing has been, I just can't be with no one else. — Lauryn Hill

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. — Lauryn Hill

I got moxie, I'm so damn cocky. Industry tried to block me like cops and paparazzi. — Lauryn Hill

I am up there onstage alone with that guitar. I don't have to consider no one else and whether they are comfortable. I need very little. — Lauryn Hill

Now the skies could fall
Not even if my boss should call
The world it seems so very small
'Cause nothing even matters at all — Lauryn Hill

The sweetest thing I've ever known was like the kiss on the collarbone, the soft caress of happiness, the way you walk, your style of dress, I wish I didn't get so weak, oh baby just to hear you speak, makes me argue just to see how much your in love with me — Lauryn Hill

Our podium is the music. It's really important that we stay focused, because things become misconstrued in the media. — Lauryn Hill

I had an economic system imposed on me. — Lauryn Hill

See fantasy is what people want, but reality is what they need. And I just retired from the fantasy part. — Lauryn Hill

I don't feel like my money or my success defines me. I've always been very happy just bein' me. — Lauryn Hill

It's silly when girls sell their souls because it's in. — Lauryn Hill

It's difficult because we live in a world that doesn't really respect the creative and intellectual contributions of women.
It's more like Oh, you're so cute. Be quiet. Shhh, don't talk too much. — Lauryn Hill

Every time truth comes we hate it, because it's coming against our ego. Are you going to let the ego come between you and this person you love? — Lauryn Hill

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

The only help I need to live, is unprofessional. The only wealth I have to give, is not material. And if you need much more than that, I'm not available. — Lauryn Hill

The honor to me has less to do with the award. To me that translates in the relationship that I have with the audience, and if my music is helpful to them, that's the award. — Lauryn Hill

God teaches me about reality, so when he tells me to do something, I do, because I'm led to. — Lauryn Hill

I wouldn't try to put myself in a box or put God in a box. — Lauryn Hill

I play my enemies like a game of chess — Lauryn Hill

I think everything happens in time. There's a time for everything. There's a time to be in a group, and there's a time to be solo. — Lauryn Hill

My concept of successful living is escaping the matrix, as we've talked about. It has very little to do with what people think success is. I actually feel successful right now, even though I don't have an album out, or a video or a song on the radio, because I'm trying to be obedient to His will. — Lauryn Hill

If you love something and if you're committed and diligent - the things happen! — Lauryn Hill

I was unhappy with my life. I had acquired everything I thought I wanted, only to find out, This is it? — Lauryn Hill

Just because I have a guitar, it doesn't mean that changes me. I still rhyme, I still sing. — Lauryn Hill

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. — Lauryn Hill

We have to make sure the music and the message and the words and all the elements come through in our songs and every time we appear in public. — Lauryn Hill

To me that's a reflection of love, when someone can see you enjoying yourself, and want to participate, or want to encourage, or want to help you to do something that you enjoy. — Lauryn Hill

I'm trying to be a loving and caring mother, a loving and caring wife-to-be, a loving and caring daughter, a loving and caring friend, a responsible person. And every day is another opportunity for me to be successful at that. — Lauryn Hill

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? — Lauryn Hill

Once you compromise yourself in one way, you compromise yourself in another way. And you've just opened the door to compromise, mediocrity, settling. — Lauryn Hill

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

Now I may have faith/ to make mountains fall/ But if I lack love/ then I am nothin' at all — Lauryn Hill

Whether Jew or Gentile, I rank top percentile. — Lauryn Hill

I sit here before you trying to figure out how to pay a tax debt? If that's not like enough to slavery, I don't know. — Lauryn Hill

You improve yourself and light up the corner that you live on. You may not touch a gazillion lives, but you can light up your own space, light up your home. — Lauryn Hill

Every time that God navigates my ship, there's nothing cerebral going on. There's very little thought. It's almost as if I have the directions. Every time I try to do it myself, I'm conjuring up my own concoction and trying. — Lauryn Hill

Miscommunication leads to complication. — Lauryn Hill

My whole life at a certain point was studio, hotel, stage, hotel, stage, studio, stage, hotel, studio, stage. I was expressing everything from my past, everything that I had experienced prior to that studio stage time, and it was like you have to go back to the well, in order to give someone something to drink. I felt like a cistern, dried up and like there was nothing more. And it was so beautiful. — Lauryn Hill

What was freely given to me, I freely give. — Lauryn Hill

With the things that I love, I tried to put a couple seeds, a bunch of seeds in the ground and see what sprung up. Sometimes it was acting and sometimes it was music. But whatever it was I continued to plant. — Lauryn Hill

If I'd known white people were going to buy my last album, I never would have recorded it. — Lauryn Hill

Over-commercialization and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual. I did not deliberately abandon my fans, nor did I deliberately abandon any responsibilities. — Lauryn Hill

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. — Lauryn Hill

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

My parents had a love for music. There were so many records, so much music constantly being played. My mother played piano, my father sang, and we were always surrounded in music. — Lauryn Hill

I am just beginning to be more comfortable with my identity. — Lauryn Hill

We can't plan life.All we can do is be available for it. — Lauryn Hill

I was hopeless, now I'm on Hope Road. — Lauryn Hill

I think the work ethic that was established in my family was something very important. If you plant the seed, if you sow sparingly and reap sparingly. If you sow in abundance you'll reap in abundance. — Lauryn Hill

We call ourselves creators and we just copy. — Lauryn Hill

If I never won a Grammy, I would be satisfied, if in fact I could help people. I don't say that because it sounds like something cool to say. — Lauryn Hill

I love being able to reach people directly, but in an ideal scenario, I would not have to rush the release of new music ... but the message is still there, — Lauryn Hill

This life is a process of learning. — Lauryn Hill

Now don't you understand man universal law
What you throw out comes back to you, star
Never underestimate those who you scar
Cause karma, karma, karma comes back to you hard — Lauryn Hill

I got into direct confrontation with everybody I love. — Lauryn Hill

I get out, I get out of all your boxes. — Lauryn Hill

From the time that you are a child, you grow up repressing yourself. — Lauryn Hill

Sometimes we all need to take time and give thanks. — Lauryn Hill

Everything is everything
What is meant to be, will be
After winter, must come spring
Change, it comes eventually — Lauryn Hill

Hip-Hop started out in the heart — Lauryn Hill

Consequence is no coincidence. — Lauryn Hill

I never did anything I'm really ashamed of. — Lauryn Hill

I have a couple of all-time favorites: Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. — Lauryn Hill

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

We don't know love like we should. We always talk about 'I have unconditional loveunconditional love iswe don't even know it. Because if a person stops stimulating us, we stop loving them. You're not interesting to talk to anymore, goodbye. But that real love, that love that sometimes is difficult, difficult to have. That's that love. And that's a confidence builder. — Lauryn Hill

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. — Lauryn Hill

Loving you is like a Song I replay every 3 Minutes and 30 Seconds of every Day ... — Lauryn Hill

God said, All right, I'm gonna show you. I made you what you are. God takes care of me. I'm just the one who delivers the message. — Lauryn Hill

We should always be aspiring to know more, and to better ourselves, and to improve ourselves. To improve ourselves, because that's how we improve the world around us, by working within us. — Lauryn Hill

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

I try not to have a day pass where I don't read something from the Bible. It's like my sustenance to me. — Lauryn Hill

I get mad when you walk away (don't walk away from me cmon now), so I tell you leave when I mean stay — Lauryn Hill

I didn't have that intense ambition to be a musician or an actress. I just enjoyed it. And by enjoying it, because I loved it, it enabled me to get better at what I was doing, because there was a love behind it. — Lauryn Hill

Everything takes place in a season. There was a season when that's all I did was listen to the music. Now I'm just in a place where I don't listen, I create. And if I do listen there are specific things that I listen to, and for specific reasons. — Lauryn Hill

When I was working, and when I was making substantial amounts of money, I always filed and paid my taxes. This only stopped, when it was necessary to withdraw from society, in order to guarantee the safety and well-being of myself and my family. — Lauryn Hill

I was very confused. I didn't understand the difference between rebellion against God and rebellion against the system that's not God. — Lauryn Hill

I'm making music for other people to listen to for pleasure. And hopefully, later on maybe they'll listen to it and go, "That bass line, boy, did you hear the way those drums interacted with that?" — Lauryn Hill

I've leaned on God for so long. "Hey, God, you just gave me this gift, and I'm just going to go out there and sing." But I'm realizing how much larger and how expansive my gift becomes when I actually pay attention to it and try to practice and try to perfect it. — Lauryn Hill

We think the man with the best rap will protect and save us, but it's not usually that way. Love is something deeper and purer. — Lauryn Hill

Everybody has a choice. I am not here to shove my light down everybody's throat. For those who don't want it, I have nothing to defend. — Lauryn Hill

I do support artists standing by their beliefs and walking with integrity. We have to find a better way to commercially exploit music while giving artists their proper respect. This cannot be done while taking their contributions for granted or trying to control the scope of their growth and power through threats and fear tactics. — Lauryn Hill

Everyday is another chance to get things right. — Lauryn Hill

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. — Lauryn Hill

I know there are certain gifts that each of us have. The gifts you don't have to worry about so much, because God gave them to us. It's the living, it's the life, it's the now. — Lauryn Hill

I get out, I get out of all your boxes. I get out, you can't hold me in these chains. I'll get out. Father free me from this bondage. Knowin' my condition is the reason I must change — Lauryn Hill

I have a problem with procrastination. I have a great deal of difficulty deciding what to wear. It's a woman thing. — 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. — Lauryn Hill

Who you going to tell when the repercussions spin, showing off your ass because you think it's a trend. — Lauryn Hill

I wrote these words for everyone who struggles in their youth.
Who won't accept deception instead of what is truth.
It seems we lose the game, before we even start to play.
Who made these rules? We're so confused. Easily led astray. — Lauryn Hill

I knew his life deserved a chance/But everybody told me to be smart/Look at your career they said/Lauren, baby use your head/But instead I chose to use my heart. — Lauryn Hill