J. K. Simmons Quotes

I look for characters that speak to something in me.

There's never been anything I didn't love that I didn't connect with on a personal level because, to some degree, I projected upon it.

Every so often you read a play and a character just speaks to you - almost seems to speak through you, in fact.

I've talked with friends about this: when you write about yourself, that's what people connect to. When you write a sermon or a lesson, that may not reach people. I've learned a lot from people who have been writing about themselves.

Emotional information is very, very rich in influence. You're giving somebody something to connect with, to see themselves in.

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

If a song's about something I've experienced or that could've happened to me it's good. But if it's alien to me, I couldn't lend anything to it. Because that's what soul is all about.

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.

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.

I think what I'm trying to do is create moments of recognition. To try to detonate some kind of feeling or understanding of lived experience.

So much of listening to lyrically driven music is projecting your own feelings and experiences into the music.

I relate to most of the characters I play, because I do feel like an outsider.

No matter how brilliantly an idea is stated, we will not really be moved unless we have already half thought of it ourselves.

To be honest with my music... for me to expect anyone to connect it has to come from a place of honesty.

If you have tapped into something that is real for you, chances are you are going to tap into something that is real for someone else.

The songs are about things that we were thinking and we wrote 'em down, and when you listen to 'em, whatever you think it's about... THAT'S what it's about!

Call it egotistical or narcissist, but I think that's what we all look for in books - the right stories that help us make sense of the world that we, on a very personal level, live in every day.

There must be a thread in everything I choose to take on, and I can't say it's a calculated thread, but I think you end up doing the work that's resonating with you.

Anytime I hear songs that are so honest, whether they make the person who's singing it look good or not, there's a level of honesty that resonates with people.

Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon... what it means to you.

I love when people mirror themselves in my music, and I think that's the whole point of it - not telling people what it is or how they're supposed to feel... but you having a relationship with my song makes it real to me.

I want everyone who's listening to know who I am and not just see me as this singer. I want them to feel connected to my story.

I think people will discover themselves in 'Ankahee.'

Hopefully when you listen to a song, you can say, 'That's me,' or 'That's someone I know' - you relate to it in a way that's cathartic.

Why am I not just some old woman ranting in a room? I think because what I say connects with people's truths.