April Lloyd > April's Quotes

“But I knew that I wouldn't let the darkness consume me. Even in the darkest night, you can still find so much light.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“Once you start to see yourself that way - as not just someone who exists to make everyone else happy but someone who deserves to make their wishes known - that changes everything.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“The woman in me was pushed down for a long time.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“The magazines seemed to love nothing more than a photo they could run with the headline “Britney Spears got HUGE! Look, she’s not wearing makeup!” As if those two things were some kind of a sin—as if gaining weight was something unkind I’d done to them personally, a betrayal.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“I was treated like a criminal and they made me think I deserved that. They made me forget my self-worth and my value. Of all the things they did, I will say the worst was to make me question my faith. I never had strict ideas about religion, I just knew there was something bigger than me. Under their control I stopped believing in God for awhile. But then when it came time to end the conservatorship I realized one thing: You can't fuck with a woman who knows how to pray. Really pray. All I did was pray.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“As if gaining weight was something unkind I had done to them personally, a betrayal. At what point did I promise to stay 17 for the rest of my life?”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“Everyone thought it was hilarious. Look how crazy she is! Even my parents acted embarrassed by me. But nobody seemed to understand that I was simply out of my mind with grief. My children had been taken away from me. With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom. No one would talk to me anymore because I was I was too ugly. My long hair was a big part of what people liked – I knew that. I knew a lot of guys thought long hair was hot… shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“I wanted to hide, but I also wanted to be seen. Both things could be true.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“In February, after not getting to see the boys for weeks and weeks, completely beside myself with grief, I went to plead to see them. Kevin wouldn't let me in. I begged him. Jayden James was five months old and Sean Preston was seventeen months old. I imagined their not knowing where their mother was, wondering why she didn't want to be with them. I wanted to get a battering ram to get to them. I didn't know what to do.
The paparazzi watched it all happen. I can't describe the humiliation I felt. I was concerned. I was out being chased, like always, by these men waiting for me to do something they could photograph.
And so that night I gave them some material.
I went into a hair salon, and I took the clippers, and I shaved off all my hair.
Everyone thought it was hilarious. Look how crazy she is! Even my parents acted embarrassed by me. But nobody seemed to understand that I was simply out of my mind with grief. My children had been taken away from me.
With my head shaved, everyone was scared of me, even my mom. No one would talk to me anymore because I was too ugly.
My long hair was a big part of what people liked-I knew that. I knew a lot of guys thought long hair was hot.
Shaving my head was a way of saying to the world: Fuck you. You want me to be pretty for you? Fuck you. You want me to be good for you? Fuck you. You want me to be your dream girl? Fuck you. I'd been the good girl for years. I'd smiled politely while TV show hosts leered at my breasts, while American parents said I was destroying their children by wearing a crop top, while executives patted my hand condescendingly and second-guessed my career choices even though I'd sold millions of records, while my family acted like I was evil. And I was tired of it.
At the end of the day, I didn't care. All I wanted to do was see my boys. It made me sick thinking about the hours, the days, the weeks I missed with them. My most special moments in life were taking naps with my children, That's the closest I've ever felt to God-taking naps with me precious babies, smelling their hair, holding their tiny hands.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“There have been so many times when I was scared to speak up because I was afraid somebody would think I was crazy. But I’ve learned that lesson now, the hard way. You have to speak the thing that you’re feeling, even if it scares you. You have to tell your story. You have to raise your voice.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“It wasn't beautiful people like Celeste who were drawing Jane's eyes, but ordinary people and the beautiful ordinariness of their bodies. A tanned forearm with a tattoo of the sun reaching out across the counter at the service station. The back of an older's man neck in a queue at the supermarket. Calf muscles and collarbones. It was the strangest thing. She was reminder of her father, who years ago had an operation on his sinuses that returned the sense of smell he hadn't realized he'd lost. The simplest smells sent him into rhapsodies of delight. He kept sniffing Jane's mother's neck and saying dreamily, "I'd forgotten your mother's smell! I didn't know I'd forgotten it!”
― Liane Moriarty, Big Little Lies

“Such joy that your sweet company makes Does leave a shadow in its wake.”
― Daniel Mason, North Woods

“I look at the fact that I survived and I think, That wasn’t me; that was God.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“Her place had been born of an idea that colored folks who couldn’t stop anywhere else in this county, well, they could stop here. Get a good meal, a little bite off a bottle of whiskey, if you could keep quiet about it; get your hair cleaned up before you made it to family up north or to the job you hoped would still be there by the time you got on the other side of Arkansas, ’cause there was no point in going if you didn’t get way the hell past Arkansas. Forty-some-odd years after the death of Jim Crow, not much had changed; Geneva’s was as preserved in time as the yellowing calendars on the cafe’s walls. She was a constant along a highway that was forever carrying people past her.”
― Attica Locke, Bluebird, Bluebird

“There was a lot I still had left to discover that night, when I was lost and felt God in the desert. But I knew that I wouldn't let the darkness consume me. Even in the darkest night, you can still find so much light.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“Now my husband, Hesam, tells me that it’s a whole thing for beautiful girls to shave their heads. It’s a vibe, he says—a choice not to play into ideas of conventional beauty. He tries to make me feel better about it, because he feels bad about how much it still pains me.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“It was a line in the sand for me, a line past which we just weren’t gon’ go, not on my watch. The badge was to say this land is my land, too, my state, my country, and I’m not gon’ be run off. I can stand my ground, too. My people built this, and we’re not going anywhere. I set my sight on the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, among others, and I turned my life over to the Texas Rangers, to this badge,” he said, pointing to the star on his chest.”
― Attica Locke, Bluebird, Bluebird

“And then, after the horror during what was supposed to be her best years, how her mother's words, the shame foisted on her by herself, her family, and everyone around her, had dictated the silence that shadowed her every move after the war.”
― Jing-Jing Lee, How We Disappeared

“I’m probably the least fearful woman alive at this point, but it doesn’t make me feel strong; it makes me sad. I shouldn’t be this strong.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“And then, through the fear, I remembered that there were still things I could hold on to: My desire for people to understand what I'd been through. My faith that all this could change. My belief that I had a right to experience joy. My knowledge that I deserved my freedom.
This sense, deeply felt and profound, that the woman in me was still strong enough to fight for what was right.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“don’t think Justin realized the power he had in shaming me. I don’t think he understands to this day. After “Cry Me a River” came out, anywhere I went, I could get booed. I would go to clubs and I would hear boos. Once I went to a Lakers game with my little sister and one of my brother’s friends, and the whole place, the whole arena, booed me.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“The way social anxiety works is that what feels like a totally normal conversation to most people, to you feels mortifying.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“Feeling like you’re never good enough is a soul-crushing state of being for a child.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“When it comes to fans, people sometimes ask me about my special relationship with the gay community.
For me, it's all about love - unconditional love.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“Lying quietly on those rocks, I felt God.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“I was rebelling, yes, but I can see now that there’s a reason why people go through rebellious times. And you have to let people go through them. I’m not saying that I was right to spiral, but I think to hinder someone’s spirit to that degree and to put them down that much, to the point where they no longer feel like themselves—I don’t think that’s healthy, either. We, as people, have to test the world. You have to test your boundaries, to find out who you are, how you want to live.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“There have been so many times I was scared to speak up because I was afraid somebody would think I was crazy. But I've learned that less now, the hard way. You have to speak the thing that you're feeling, even if it scares you. You have to tell your story. You have to raise your voice.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“Even amid all the darkness, there was still a lot of joy in my childhood.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“Whether it was strangers in the media or within my own family, people seemed to experience my body as public property: something they could police, control, criticize, or use as a weapon. My body was strong enough to carry two children and agile enough to execute every choreographed move perfectly onstage. And now here I was, having every calorie recorded so people could continue to get rich off my body.”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me

“In the news media, I was described as a harlot who’d broken the heart of America’s golden boy. The truth: I was comatose in Louisiana, and he was happily running around Hollywood.
May I just say that on his explosive album and in all the press that surrounded it, Justin neglected to mention the several times he’d cheated on me?”
― Britney Spears, The Woman in Me