role models quotes

Many people, especially in the U.S., see countries like Sweden or Norway or Finland as role models – we have such a clean energy sector, and so on. That may be true, but we are not role models.

I think that when you’re making your way up in the music industry, you have all these heroes and the reasons why they are your heroes. As soon as you get into the industry, your guidelines change a little bit. For me, my heroes now are great people first and great artists second.

I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity.

As we’ve seen time and again, women and girls who are out there working, they are truly force multipliers, spreading opportunity through their families and communities – and not just by creating programs and nonprofit organizations, not just by hiring other women, but also by serving as role models themselves.

When I was growing up, there was nobody in my family – not even my mother – who I could look to and be like, ‚I know you’ve never said anything homophobic.‘ So, you know, you worry about people in the business who you’ve heard talk that way. Some of my heroes coming up talk recklessly like that.

With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us. We as parents are their most important role models.

My mother never cursed at home; my father never cursed at home. My father didn’t drink. Even though we were poor, we would say a blessing over the table. So that’s who I am.

Kids are watching us. I experience it every single day. They hang on my every word, what I wear, what I say.

Let’s be very clear: Strong men – men who are truly role models – don’t need to put down women to make themselves feel powerful. People who are truly strong lift others up. People who are truly powerful bring others together.

I gather from motivation around me – from a lot of personalities who have done well in their respective fields.

I have certain guys who I looked up to. Jordan, Kobe, those guys. Passing that on to doing my part to kind of keep that influence of basketball where it should be is kind of why I play the game.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

I was of the generation where most of the Disney princesses and female characters were not girls that I admired. They just weren’t characters I looked up to and identified with.

Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.

There’s room for role models who make mistakes.

I was impressed with what someone like Karl Lagerfeld built and did and the house that he made, but there was never really a female figure I wanted to emulate.

As you get older it is harder to have heroes, but it is sort of necessary.

The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.