“Flannel shirts, denim, Converse, a guitar, messy hair? That’s literally me.”
― Alessia Cara
“I keep my hair curly and natural because I really just wanna show who I am.”
― Alessia Cara
“People want to create something bigger for themselves, and making up drama that isn’t there gives people the impression that they have haters. It’s all for attention so it looks like they are important.”
― Alessia Cara
“I feel like I’m in my own head a lot; it just feels amazing, but scary, weird and confusing.”
― Alessia Cara
“I feel New York is too crazy for me, especially when you go to Times Square.”
― Alessia Cara
“Realize that everyone that you think is perfect feels like they’re not good enough, too.”
― Alessia Cara
“Talent is talent, but fashion is separate, and it shouldn’t be used to judge me as a singer.”
― Alessia Cara
“’Wild Things’ is saying, ‘I don’t have to belong anywhere. This is where I belong.’ It’s a place in the back of my mind that I created, and it’s cool, and I love it here.”
― Alessia Cara
“I am stubborn enough to know not to change myself.”
― Alessia Cara
“I want ‘Scars to Your Beautiful’ to reach different types of women. The girl I am talking about, it’s me, it’s you – it’s every girl who has struggled with feeling not good enough. I want to talk about all the different extremes that girls go through to feel beautiful.”
― Alessia Cara
“Success is when you see something, and you say, ‘I want to do that,’ and then you do it. It’s being happy with what you do and doing what you love every day.”
― Alessia Cara
“I think the world is very closed-minded sometimes and very dated. We need to start opening our minds.”
― Alessia Cara
“We should just know that we can all create this special, safe place within ourselves that we can feel comfortable in and that doesn’t necessarily have to be with other people.”
― Alessia Cara
“There’s something so beautiful in a woman who loves her body and is confident.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’ve always been self-conscious about my personality.”
― Alessia Cara
“Body image is something that girls struggle with every day, and it’s something that I struggle with every day.”
― Alessia Cara
“As a young girl, I’m always going to have to work a bit harder to prove myself; that’s just reality. But having to work harder makes me feel like girls are stronger, too.”
― Alessia Cara
“You don’t always have to be popular and do things everyone else is doing.”
― Alessia Cara
“Every time I sing, it it’s a reminder to myself that I have to be confident.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’ve never hosted a party in my life, not even my own birthday party. I’d feel really uncomfortable saying, ‘Hey everybody, let’s celebrate me!’ But I’m not antisocial. I don’t hate people.”
― Alessia Cara
“I grew up in this little city called Brampton. It’s pretty suburban – there’s not a lot going on. In my neighbourhood, specifically, there weren’t a lot of other kids so I would just spend a lot of time inside.”
― Alessia Cara
“I love experimenting with clothes for photo shoots, but when I’m onstage, I want to show people that there are other options. You can just be yourself and still make good music.”
― Alessia Cara
“I see songs in colors; I see days of the week. Each day of the week I relate to a gender, and it’s very weird. I can taste words sometimes. It’s very strange.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’ve never been one to crave attention, which I know means that this is probably the worst career to pick. I get anxious even when people come up to me for pictures sometimes. That’s the one thing that makes me hesitant about my future. But I love music too much to not do it.”
― Alessia Cara
“I think we all have the right to feel 100 percent beautiful and 100 percent confident without pleasing anybody ’cause we’re not here for anybody else.”
― Alessia Cara
“I never really necessarily liked being quiet.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“Beauty comes in all forms. It’s not just external; it’s internal as well.”
― Alessia Cara
“Canada is a really big melting pot of cultures, so we ended up with a giant mosaic of different music.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“Ninety per cent of my family are hairdressers, and the other 10% are construction workers.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“I was always so scared to sing in front of people. That was kind of my weird thing.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“I was a troublemaking kid.”
― Alessia Cara
“I wanted to get through high school anonymously.”
― Alessia Cara
“’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.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“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?”
― Alessia Cara
“I was a very strange child.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“I don’t know how to talk to people I don’t know.”
― Alessia Cara
“I don’t really dance. I don’t drink or smoke. Being at parties is very awkward.”
― Alessia Cara
“The only thing I’m really, truly good at is music – I just love it.”
― Alessia Cara
“Singing was something I always did. I really don’t remember a time when I wasn’t singing, even as a little child.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“YouTube is my first love.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“I was too shy to do any vocal lessons or go to choirs; I just didn’t want to be seen doing it. It’s something that I kept to myself. I started easing into it, and I started doing talent shows, and YouTube really helped with that, too.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“Everywhere I go, every city, they’re always like, ‘What’s in the water in Canada? What’s in the water in Toronto?’”
― Alessia Cara
“I barely have time to think. But the best way to stay grounded is to take it one day at a time.”
― Alessia Cara
“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.”
― Alessia Cara
“Cats are evil, and they hate me.”
― Alessia Cara
“When I was eight, I told my best friend I got a Hilary Duff autograph, but I just signed it myself.”
― Alessia Cara
“Frank Ocean would be incredible; I’d love to be a sponge and absorb everything he says. Every song he puts out, I’m like, ‘Why didn’t I think of this?’”
― Alessia Cara
“I always find power in struggles. You end up a lot happier that way.”
― Alessia Cara
“In late elementary school, early high school, I started losing my hair in chunks in the shower. It was one of the scariest things. It got to the point where it was visibly gone.”
― Alessia Cara
“Being in the public eye, you’re always worried about what angle people are going to take pictures of you at. I don’t really care anymore.”
― Alessia Cara
“I like to mimic accents. I don’t even know if that’s a talent. That’s just a weird thing that I do.”
― Alessia Cara
“All I’m really good at is making music and singing and doing this. I’m not good at fashion, so I don’t see a point in trying to be good at that.”
― Alessia Cara
“It’s important to show that there’s different ways of doing things. Some people like to be glamorous, and that’s perfectly fine, and that’s amazing. If I were that style, then I would do that. I’d wear heels every day, and I’d strut around in a dress, but that’s not me.”
― Alessia Cara
“It took me a while to really believe in myself or feel determined about it, but then once I realized that it’s possible for anyone, and these people who are singers started off very normal… I realized that it was not that hard to do.”
― Alessia Cara
“I just want to keep my normal life for as long as possible.”
― Alessia Cara
“It’s not that I don’t care how I look, but I’d rather turn the attention to the music as much as possible.”
― Alessia Cara
“I don’t put the focus on things that don’t matter.”
― Alessia Cara
“That’s all I ever wanted to do: put out music from the heart that people could relate to.”
― Alessia Cara
“I remember making a ‘thank you’ video when one of my videos got to 50 views!”
― Alessia Cara
“Often, as teens, we think we know everything, but actually we’re just trying to figure life out, and we don’t know much at all.”
― Alessia Cara
“I really want to speak for young women, especially because I feel like we’re constantly brainwashed in everyday life.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’m definitely not a supermodel, a thousand per cent.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’m unpolished, I guess.”
― Alessia Cara
“I had a fairly regular childhood. I was a pretty boring kid. I didn’t do much. I was always thinking, but I didn’t really say a lot.”
― Alessia Cara
“I was one of those weird kids who didn’t really speak or smile. I remember my teachers would call home and ask if everything was fine at home because I would never smile. Then I got into this phase, from maybe fourth to eighth grade, where my personality just did a 180.”
― Alessia Cara
“Both my parents are Italian. My mom was born and raised in Italy. My dad was born in Canada, but then they moved to Italy.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’m really in touch with my Italian roots. My mom’s whole side of the family is there.”
― Alessia Cara
“For some reason, I’m constantly attacked on social media in terms of how I dress. I’ve never understood that. That’s been very hard.”
― Alessia Cara
“As a female and someone who’s young, I’m still coming into my own, and I still have struggles. I know how I look; I know what my flaws are – I don’t need anybody to tell me that.”
― Alessia Cara
“My family is from the south of Italy in this little place called Calabria. It’s a big part of my family, the Italian culture. I grew up around it. My parents speak Italian, and I speak Italian.”
― Alessia Cara
“When I was really young, I was convinced I wanted to be a visual artist. I would paint and draw and make crafts.”
― Alessia Cara
“I was always singing around the house, even when I was two years old.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’m a fan of real singers. I just gravitate towards that.”
― Alessia Cara
“I just try to tell my stories in a way that is still light-hearted and fun to listen to. I’m not trying to bash you over the head with what I have to say.”
― Alessia Cara
“I always did music privately as a hobby, I think partly because I was nervous to do it in front of other people.”
― Alessia Cara
“Real social situations are taking a back seat to social media.”
― Alessia Cara
“It’s good to have a reminder that we can love ourselves and be beautiful even though we don’t really fit into certain standards of what beauty may be.”
― Alessia Cara
“I just dress how I wanna dress. Not to say that I don’t care about how I dress or that I’m a slob or anything like that… I just don’t have to worry about the outside opinions of what people are saying.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’m just glad that there’s some diversity in the music industry with women so people know that you can be literally anything and still be able to make it.”
― Alessia Cara
“I don’t think a lot of artists have the freedom that I have when it comes to dressing in general.”
― Alessia Cara
“The biggest critics are in the comments online. People are so judgmental of me. It’s like, ‘Why is she wearing this?’ or ‘Why isn’t she wearing that?’ or ‘Why does she talk like that?’ That’s the worst because they’re judging for no reason.”
― Alessia Cara
“It’s so cool though when I see thirty-year-old men that are coming in to watch my shows. It’s like, ‘You really like my music? Like a teenage girl, you relate to it?’ It just proves how much people are alike.”
― Alessia Cara
“I think fame is such a scary thing, and it’s something I can never understand. It’s terrifying, but it’s the only way I get to do what I love every day, you know?”
― Alessia Cara
“I wasn’t even popular at school.”
― Alessia Cara
“When I write, I like squeezing as many words as possible into each bar – I’ve listened to the Fugees and Lauryn Hill for as long as I can remember, so probably a big chunk of it subconsciously comes from that.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’d never make something pointless that I don’t believe in. I don’t think I could do it.”
― Alessia Cara
“As a kid, my parents would always listen to a lot of Beatles, Queen, Elvis. My mom was born and raised in Italy, and my dad was born in Canada and moved back and forth between Canada and Italy, so they would also listen to all the big Italian stars like Eros Ramazzotti, Gigi D’Alessio, Tiziano Ferro, Laura Pausini.”
― Alessia Cara
“I didn’t start writing songs, honestly, until I started making my album. I was always doing poetry, but I never thought I could write songs. I discouraged myself and thought it was so hard. But starting this process and learning just what it is to be a songwriter and performer taught me that you don’t have to feel discouraged about anything.”
― Alessia Cara
“I want to show people that I am comfortable enough to go on national television and just be myself.”
― Alessia Cara
“Having a mom as a hairdresser was really awesome: I was always her test dummy. I’ve had every style, every color you could imagine.”
― Alessia Cara
“I always get criticized for my clothing because I like wearing jeans and T-shirts. There’s nothing wrong with dressing sexy. It’s just I don’t want to be anything that I’m not. I’m not here to be a fashion icon. I am here to make songs.”
― Alessia Cara
“If I’m kind of an outsider, it just happened that way, and people responded to it.”
― Alessia Cara
“I would never wear anything because someone told me to.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’d like to shut off all the noise and allow people to be creative without all the judgments and standards that we think we have to follow.”
― Alessia Cara
“When I was shopping around trying to get signed, I made it a point to say, ‘This is who I am.’ I dress the way I normally dress, and I just wanted to find a label that would accept me for that.”
― Alessia Cara
“This industry kind of forces you to grow up very quickly.”
― Alessia Cara
“I think the media can definitely show more diversity – different sizes of women, different colours of women, just more diversity in general.”
― Alessia Cara
“I don’t wear a lot of makeup ever, even when I do interviews or when I’m on TV. I just keep it me, and I think it’s important to show people I’m a regular person and regular people are beautiful, too.”
― Alessia Cara
“It’s hard to consider myself one when a lot of my fans and people who are calling me a role model are people my age and sometimes older than me. I feel like they’re at the same walk of life that I’m in right now, and they can probably teach me things about life, too.”
― Alessia Cara
“I actually didn’t grow up watching ‘Degrassi,’ but I saw the commercials and knew the characters. I didn’t realize that Drake was the guy from ‘Degrassi.’ I had to piece it together and go, ‘Oh! He’s Aubrey Graham.’”
― Alessia Cara
“If Ed Sheeran covered my songs, I would die. That would be unbelievable.”
― Alessia Cara
“I don’t really think I got the full high school experience, only because when I got to high school for the first year, it was grades 9-10. We didn’t have older grades. But besides that, it was normal. It was a regular public school. We didn’t have much going on. It wasn’t too crazy.”
― Alessia Cara
“Throughout my high school years, I was very quiet, I didn’t have many friends. I distanced myself from a lot of people.”
― Alessia Cara
“I think all teenagers feel a lot of things at once; everything’s going crazy in our brain.”
― Alessia Cara
“It’s amazing: it’s so cool being from Brampton, Ontario, and being able to travel the world and being embraced by so many countries.”
― Alessia Cara
“The fact that there’s people out there that care about what I’m eating for breakfast or care about a tweet that I posted in 2012 that they pulled up because they were searching on my Twitter and things like that – it’s hard to understand, because it’s just me, and I just think, ‘What’s so interesting about me?’”
― Alessia Cara
“I’m here to make music; I’m not here be a fashion model.”
― Alessia Cara
“Once you put songs out, they’re not yours anymore. They’re everyone else’s.”
― Alessia Cara
“I’m not a fitness model; I’m just a singer. If people focus on that, that’s what I care about.”
― Alessia Cara
“I loved the Black Eyed Peas. I was obsessed with them, and they were my favorite group ever, and Amy Winehouse, as well; I love her.”
― Alessia Cara
“I would love to host ‘Saturday Night Live.’ That’s one of my goals in life – just putting that out there. I don’t know if I’m funny enough, but we’ll see.”
― Alessia Cara
“I do feel pressure from the outside world a little bit just because everybody wants new music, which is really nice. It just proves that everybody likes what I’m doing. But at the same time, I feel like it’s important to just chill and experience things and really make the songs true to me.”
― Alessia Cara
“When you’re from an unknown place, I think it’s hard for you to believe it’s possible. You think you have to go to L.A. or New York to make it, but I don’t think that’s true. I’m glad to be an example that you can make it from where you are. All you need is talent and hard work.”
― Alessia Cara
“When you give your all as an artist, and all people can talk about is what pants you’re wearing, it’s really frustrating.”
― Alessia Cara
“Maybe I’m not a typical pop star, but I don’t think there’s a mould for a pop star or singer. You can do whatever you want.”
― Alessia Cara
“The definition of being a feminist is equality, and if you’re not a feminist at this point, then what are you really promoting?”
― Alessia Cara
“I never thought I’d have a career because of YouTube.”
― Alessia Cara
“We all just need to love ourselves and believe in ourselves.”
― Alessia Cara
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