“The less others really knew about me, I reasoned, the less ammunition they’d have to make me look foolish. Only if I revealed my tender spots could they wound me. My true self, the one I kept so deeply concealed, only emerged in my diaries. There, I could unveil. On cotton pages scrawled with purple ink, I didn’t have to be tough or brave or capable or strong. I could just be me.”

Alicia Keys, More Myself (Page 30)