[WATCH] Beyoncé’s ‘Life Is But A Dream’ HBO Documentary + TJB’s Favorite Quotables

After over a month of speculation, and a ton of marketing (via Billboards, instagrams, TV and YouTube clips), fans finally got a glimpse inside the private life of Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter. For the sake of your own attention spans, we won’t review her HBO documentary, ‘Life is But A Dream’, but we have captured some of what we feel are her most interesting quotes and five life lessons that we learned from watching one of the biggest stars in the country.

On her father, Matthew Knowles, encouraging her from a young child to be competitive:

I think my father wouldn’t give it to me, because he kept pushing me. In that house, that is my foundation. I’m still trying to learn that I don’t have to kill myself and be so hard myself. I don’t want to never be satisfied. I don’t think that’s a healthy way to live.

On living up to where she was, professionally, before managing herself:

It’s something really stressful about having to keep up with that. It’s something really crippling–you can’t express yourself. You can’t grow. I set a goal and my goal was independence.

On how she felt emotionally about firing her father:

I’m feeling very empty because of my relationship w/ my dad and I’m so fragile at this point…and i feel like my soul has been tarnished. Life is unpredictable but I feel like I had to move on. And I don’t care if I sell one record. It’s bigger than a record. It’s bigger than my career.

On what caused her to fire her father:

At some point, you need your support system and you need your family. When you’re tryna have an everyday conversation with your family….I needed boundaries and I think my dad needed boundaries. It’s really easy to get confused w/ this world, with your job and you don’t know when to turn it off. You need a break. I needed a break.

If she’s felt like she’s got her ‘dad’ back, since they no longer work together:

No. It was hard. I had to sacrifice my relationship w/ my dad. I twas a stressful, sad difficult time, but I had to let go.

On deciding what she wanted, professionally:

Do you want to be successful on radio? Do you want to kiss asses? What do you want? I said ‘Imma take a risk. Forget being cool, Imma be honest.’

On how fans have changed with what they want and having so much public access to celebrities:

People don’t make albums anymore. They just try to sell a bunch of quick singles.When I first started out, there was no Internet. People are so brainwashed. It’s all you think of–the picture and the image that you see. You don’t see the human form. I think when Nina Simone put out music, you loved her voice. You didn’t get brainwashed by what she was wearing. It’s not your business. It shouldn’t influence the way you listen to the voice and the art, but it does.

On not being too afraid to show vulnerability:

[I had to] Stop pretending I have it all together. If I’m scared, I’m scared. I think I need to go listen to ‘make love to me’ and make love to my husband.

Her reaction when she found out that she was pregnant with Blue Ivy:

Wow? Really, this is crazy. We’ll see what happens in the next chapter of my life because I have so much going on. Being pregnant was very much like falling in love. You are so open, you are so overjoy(ed). There’s no words that can express having a baby growing inside. But you just want to tell everyone. So I had to hide, something that was the best thing in my life.

On the importance of sisterhood and there nothing like being a woman:

It’s difficult being a woman, it’s so much pressure. We need that support. I grew up in a house w/ my mother, who was a hair stylist. Women would come in that salon w/ problems..We all have the same insecurities. I have been around the world, I love my husband, but it’s nothing like having a conversation w/ a woman. I need my sisters.

On hiding her pregnancy for her ‘Billboard’ performance and being a feminist (my label, not hers):

Billboard was a huge artistic gamble. Nobody knew I was pregnant and I’m cool with that. It absolutely proved to me that it really pisses me off that women don’t get the same opportunity that men get. Or money. It gives men the power to define our values. And that’s bullshit. We hafta reshape our own. We hafta step up as women and take the lead and reach as high as humanly possible.

On having a miscarriage and the pain that she experienced privately:

It’s really hard to go thru painful experiences when you’re in the public eye. About two years ago, I was pregnant for the first time and I heard the heart beat, which was the most beautiful music I ever heard. It makes you truly know that there’s life inside of you. I picked out names, I envisioned what my child looked like. My first child. With the man that I love. My family was so excited. I flew back to NY to get my check-up and no heart beat. Literally, the week before I went to the doctor and everything was fine. I went into the studio and wrote the saddest song I ever wrote in my life and it was the first song I wrote for my album. And it was the best form of therapy for me.

On being a business woman:

Business and being polite doesn’t match. Me being polite is not me being fair to myself. Now I’m learning how political things are. A lot of the crazy things he did (my father) were necessary.

On her relationship with Jay-Z and if it’s coincidental that she married a musician:

I think me marrying a musician is a coincidence. We connected on a spiritual level and he just so happened to be a musician. He’s taught me so much about being an artist. And fighting for what I believe. I’m like most women; i’m very generous. I usta be so afraid that people thought I was too difficult. I don’t really care about that anymore. I just pray Jay and I stay a team, bc right now, we’re very connected, [we] completely understand each other. This baby has made me love him more…I love him so much. We almost feel like one.

On fake pregnancy rumors:

It’s actually the most ridiculous rumor that I ever had about me. It’s crazy. I guess they’re some crazy celebrities in the world. To think that I would be that vain…And I respect mothers and women so much.

And here are few shallow and fake deep things that we’ve learned about Bey.

1. She curses like a normal person. We caught her dropping a few sh*t bombs while recording.

2. She wears ‘Beats by Dre’ like all the cool kids.

3. She’s sarcastic. When working w/ her graphics guy (pulling imagery together for her Billboard performance), she sarcastically told him:

I think ya’ll graphics are like a vicadin–too slow.

4. She uses anger to motivate her. She shared that sometimes, before performing on stage, she use to wish someone would upset her, because she used the anger in rage to motivate her on stage.

5. Motherhood scared her. She explained:

It was my biggest fear. I was like ‘I’m scared to death.’ I was scared. I just kept thinking ‘I was made for this’. My body is gonna do what it’s suppose to do. I felt like God was giving me a chance to assist in a miracle. That’s what life is, it’s the greatest show on earth.

6. She believes in God.

I am result of my grandmother’s prayers. And my mother prays for me all the time. And God is real and God lives inside of me and inside of all of us. It doesn’t matter where I am. I feel it. Right now, I’m hot. It’s a tingling. It’s God.

And here’s the full documentary.

What are your thoughts of the documentary? Did it live up to the hype? Or was Beyonce still a bit too guarded, for this to be a documentary about her life?