Peter De Vries Quotes

Concealment makes the soul a swamp. Confession is how you drain it.

What I like about singing is that, for me, it's a substitute for the psychiatrist's couch.

People think my work is therapeutic. I don't see it that way. It's not like I'm saving money from a weekly therapy visit by writing down my life.

I guess writing is a kind of therapy in the sense that there are things you need to say and you say them, and better out than in.

A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession.

I had enough therapy to know when I broke it down, it became clearer to me: Yes, comedy was kind of a cleansing thing for me to do.

Comedy is free therapy. And if it's done well, the audience and the comic take turns being the doctor as well as the patient.

I feel like songwriting, for me, is kind of therapy.

I always find out after the fact that the books I've been writing were actually some sort of therapy, some sort of, you know, self-examination that I had to write the book in order to complete.

Songwriting is therapeutic for me.

You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that's why you feel awful later--you've relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it's not better, it's worse---the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.

The word 'confession,' to me, means needing to be absolved. I'm not asking for forgiveness. I'm not asking people to understand. I'd like to think that I tell stories and sometimes my life weaves through it.

Part of my therapy is to write.

I have been blessed with roles that allow me to express something very personal at a specific time in my life. I seek them out; acting is my therapy.

Acting's not therapy, but it can be therapeutic.

Just writing and being in the studio was like therapy for me.

Singing becomes a form of therapy.

I broke down on Thursday, Nov. 3, and told Sheriff Howard Wells the truth. It wasn't easy, but after the truth was out, I felt like the world was lifted off my shoulders.

It can be really powerful to write something when you're sad.

In recounting our woes, we often soothe them.

I'm not a big fan of psychoanalysis: I think if you have mental problems what you need are good pills. But I do think that if you have thinks that bother you, things that are unresolved, the more that you talk about them, write about them, the less serious they become.

Writing has never been like therapy for me, but blogging comes a little closer - I can smack-talk freely and frequently, and this is good for me.

I really don't feel that writing is therapy.

It's good to actually cry. Trust me, I've had a lot of practice over the years!

Just performing is where I'm happiest, and gets me rid of my troubles and worries.