Brett Gelman Quotes

I'm not really an autobiographical writer, though I use lots of stuff from my life to make my stories seem real. But when I actually write about myself, I get very confused.

Editing yourself is like an irksome coin toss. You've got to strip yourself of super ego and operate from the id. Maybe I've got my Freud mixed up. It's just hard to trade a beauty shot for the performance with truth and a brightly lit zit.

If you write something that's personal, there's going to be elements of yourself in it.

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.

The only thing you can really say in a poem is what you really, really deeply believe.

I think of myself as a guy who tries to write screenplays and now has tried to direct one. Anything more than that is meaningless and it gets in the way of being a real human being.

I am very conscious of who I am as an artist and as an inspirational person.

I think my job is to try and be as honest as I can with what is in my mind and how I feel - I think that's what you're supposed to do, if you're a good writer. So I try to do that. I know I do that. I do do that.

The writer needs to react to his or her own internal universe, to his or her own point of view. If he or she doesn't have a personal point of view, it's impossible to be a creator.

I'm self-deprecating, but I'm an artist, too. I have to write new songs to chronicle stuff for myself. I write a song like 'Middle Age' or 'Responsibility' or 'I Just Work Here,' and it's about how bleak life can be. But it's real.

I think I'm writing for an intelligent stranger - you know, in my mind I can't remember who coined that phrase first. I don't want to write anything that makes me cringe, first of all. I cringe a lot - mostly when I hear popular music.

When people like your music because it has vulnerable honesty, and you're able to comfortably admit to flaws and imperfections, then that's the most liberating thing about being an artist.

The hardest thing is spending twelve hours a day accommodating the rest of the world, then going home at night and criticizing it. I would be curious about what I'd write if I didn't have to worry about offending.

I guess I'm trying to write stuff that I, as a viewer, would connect to.

Where he tells you exactly how he views the world - just very straight Kanye, honesty that definitely gets your creativity and strong opinions out on the floor. I think it helped me find myself.

When writing songs, especially if they're kinda semi-true to you, a lot of people hide behind whatever their idea of themselves is in the record, and every now and then, you might make a song that exposes something a little too much about you, and there's a part that doesn't want yourself to be exposed.

When you're younger, you want to project an image of yourself through your work, but now, I just want to make something honest.

I'm not really interested in myself in my writing. I can't see myself in the songs, even though I know different parts of me are there.

The creative process has been a little bit of an experience, really - to try and make that work for me. The only way I know how to do that is just to remain genuine, humble, and true to everything I know already in my life.

Please understand that I make music to express myself, and if you know anything about me, you know that I'm nothing but honest.

A lot of my songs are about things that concern me personally, not a heightened version of myself or any of the characters that I play.

I always made my songs very conversational, and if anyone ever has a conversation with me, they know I'm a very open guy, very open and honest.

I feel like I try to write from an honest of a place as I can - without scaring people off too much, I guess.

I have never been able to separate - nor have I wanted to - my personal love and desire for truth, passion, and understanding from my lyrics.

Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to be other people. They often reveal much about themselves in a very straightforward way. I am certain that I did. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.