Shakira

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.

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.

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.

Because of you, I’m running out of reasons to cry.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

You’re a song written by the hands of God.

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.

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.

I’m Colombian and nothing will change that.