Holly Lisle Quotes

I generally follow my own compass and make films about what's scaring me.

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.

Lauryn Hill is quite political and is very bold and isn't afraid of wearing her heart on her sleeve, and same with Bjork, except she is a little bit more kind of fragile.

Here's the thing: If you're taking roles that aren't intimidating you, and I think this is a cliche that a lot of actors say, but if it's not intimidating you, then why are you doing it?

When I started writing at 18 or 19, I had a fear of anything autobiographical, but I've come to realise that my writing is very autobiographical at the emotional level.

I don't mind finding these ugly sides to my personality and exaggerating them because that's something you can write towards.

My goal is always to do something that feels just beyond my reach, and 'Homeland' continues to do that. Every season, they find new ways to scare me. The show is like a diamond that fell from the sky. I'll always feel slightly bludgeoned by it, but in the best way possible.

None of the records I make are ever a deliberate construction - they're always an expression of who I am at the time and where I am in my life.

I would never shoot down any opportunity to challenge myself or stretch myself.

I've always been an outsider. I've always been attracted to roles that would challenge me and that wouldn't come around very often.

I'm just a perpetually confused and terrified person that is trying to be less so all the time, and music is the byproduct of that.

I've put out a lot of stuff that just confused and alienated people: a huge chunk of songs that were verbal and musical challenges to myself, thoughts I was keeping myself busy with, nothing I had any intention of anybody grasping onto.

I think 'Lost Boy' is more of a metaphor for oneself. When I listen to that song, I don't picture someone else. I kind of wrote it from a very honest place.

I'm singing and dancing and playing guitar. I really enjoy pushing myself into different aspects. I'm not going to do this for the rest of my life, but I want to keep challenging myself. And if I'm fearful of something I definitely want to step into it and see how good or bad I am at it.

I would never accept a role that wasn't going to stretch me or challenge me in some way. I'd say Holy Smoke! probably did that more than anything I'd ever done. It took me to places I didn't actually know I could go to, and that's what I want my career to be all about.

I like challenges. If you're involved, as one is, in filmmaking, you want to challenge yourself. You don't want to repeat what you're done before.

The biggest thing for me is I don't want to let people down. At the same time I love things that scare me and challenge me. If your job doesn't do that and doesn't excite you there's no point in doing it.

I wanted to be scared again... I wanted to feel unsure again. Thats the only way I learn, the only way I feel challenged.

For one movie, I'm learning to play a violin, and I had never picked up a violin in my life. That's a big challenge. That's what I see as one of the advantages of this business. You get to do things you'd never do, in a normal lifestyle.

I want to play challenging characters. You should never be satisfied.

The performances make you want to get back out there and try something new and challenge yourself.

I love challenging myself, doing different things and exploring different areas that I haven't been to or gone to before. That's what I love about acting, and that's what I love about film.

I'd always thought I would feel like an animal released from its cage when my student days were finished, I felt more like a bird that had been pushed from its nest and told it must fly.

The way I challenge myself is by writing something that really engages me, that doesn't have an easy answer, and isn't always an easy book to write.

The challenge and love, for me, of acting is if you get to transform or do something you haven't done before. That's fun.