Kelli O'Hara Quotes

I live my life pretty emotionally, for better and for worse. I'm pretty thin-skinned and transparent. I lead with my heart, and I wanted to make a movie that did the same.

I think that people respond to honesty in music, so I only choose songs that are the truth for me.

It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.

Man was made to lead with his chin; he is worth knowing only with his guard down, his head up and his heart rampant on his sleeve.

In my opinion, trying to guess what readers want is the wrong approach. You have to tell your story as best you can and as true to yourself as possible. You have to be honest and fair and vulnerable and foolish and brave, and not care what anyone thinks of it.

I think that the best way you can get honesty across in your music to connect and relate to people is to be motivated by personal emotions, stories and feelings.

I think a lot of people don't wear their hearts on their sleeves. I think people should, but a lot of people don't. People may be a bit taken back sometimes about how honest I am and how open I am. But I'm happier this way - it's a good thing for me.

I also sing about my mom leaving me a lot - a lot of kids have their moms or dads leave them, so they relate to that. I wear my heart on my sleeve, so I think that's what the kids love.

I show them the funny part, the silly part, the laughing part, the crazy part and then the really deep, deep part where I'm talking from my heart to these people. Because I've been through everything they've been through.

I love 'I'm British But...' It's such a sweet, innocent, open-hearted film, and it has the sort of openness that I still aspire to with everything I do. It wears its heart, head, everything on its sleeve.

Fiction, at its best, is a radical act of intimacy. It seeks to join, to merge, to know deeply; and, as with intimacy, there is a way in which it cannot be faked.

It's very easy for me to play silly, but to reveal something closer to you, that's so much harder.

I think irony precludes really feeling deeply about anything. I just didn't want to be that kind of writer who found nothing that wasn't worth indictment. I admire Willa Cather so much because she was unafraid to have big feelings and put them on the page. I just want to be able to believe in things.

I feel what I sing, and I sing what I feel. Really, that's all I can do.

I think the best acting is when you allow yourself to be kind of vulnerable in the moment.

What I would not like is to be ignored. I write from the heart. I don't write for me. I write for my readers.

To have a songwriter that wrote so specifically what I felt to be true... I've never been much of an actor either. If something is real for me, then I can do it.

For me, the most effective cabaret evenings have been some of the most personal ones, where the performer is comfortable enough to simply be themselves.

I don't feel I have to charm somebody, I feel I want to know them; it's a different thing.

I need to let people know who I am and instead of just trying to make great records, just be honest and make it more personal and make it more passionate, to make records with emotion and not be afraid to express that.

When I started to write 'Hannah's Child,' I realized that this had to be a book of passion, to have a certain kind of vulnerability. I think that people respond to that.

I try to open up my heart as much as I can and keep a real keen eye out that I don't get sentimental. I think we're all afraid to reveal our hearts. It's not at all in fashion.

It is always easier to write from the heart and deal with things in the present.

People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that's not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music.

If Rihanna stripped it all down morally rather than with her clothes, perhaps we'd get closer to Nina Simone. She's talented, but all we want is to sing the truth. If Britney Spears was to sing closer to her heart, she might have been the new Bobby Gentry or Dolly Parton.