Sharon Van Etten Quotes

I always like to write where I'm at in real life into whatever I'm working on.

I think that even though some of the things on 'Humans of New York' are kind of very personal and very revealing, I think the discomfort with sharing that tends to be overwritten by the appreciation of being able to distill the experience of your life into a story and share it with other people.

My writing is a product of how I would interact with things that have happened to me or things that have not happened to me but have happened to somebody else.

I'm a songwriter, and people will tell you the greatest stories about their lives, whether you want to hear it or not.

I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.

They say, 'Write what you know.' What I know isn't cheerleader; it has a little bit of teeth to it.

My advice would be to write what is most personal and specific to your experience or your life. And your voice will emerge and because of its specificity, it will be universal.

I certainly want to continue to write in a way that's intimate.

I always tell people, I never get writer's block because it's coming straight from my brain, like, real-life experiences. I'm like the news. I'm just reporting it for myself.

Share your true stories.

You don't always have to have the most amazing story. It's learning to share the story you have that counts.

You do your best to tell your own story, in the most specific way, and then you hope that that travels well, when it's done with heart and honesty.

All my music is autobiographical, and that's the reason why people like my music. They know when I'm saying something on a song, I mean it. It comes from a real place and captures the realness in my life.

When you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about.

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.

In today's time, writing stuff that actually happened is touch-and-go, because you don't want to be too personal. If you are, then it probably won't relate to a mass audience. A lot of times you have to make it sound like it's about everybody else, but you really went through it.

I wanted to write stories I wanted to read, that I and my friends related to.

The truth is, for however much my stories come out of things that have happened to me, they're not darkly or as deeply personal as someone like Marc Maron or a lot of comedians, but they are essentially my life and my interpretation of it.

I don't have to worry about writing jokes. I just tell stories about things that have happened to me. As long as I'm alive and I'm living and I'm experiencing different things every day, the show will always change.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

What I'm passionate about is telling stories which mean something to me.

If I'm writing strictly for others, how does that show what I'm experiencing or thinking? I just got to a point where I realized I could be as personal as I wanted to be and people could relate to those situations if they so choose.

I'd say most of my songs I write from personal experience. When I feel like I don't have any inspiration in my personal life, I think about others that are close to me and maybe what they're going through or even just people I've come across, acquaintances.

I write my songs because I've lived them.

I knew I couldn't do what Eddie Izzard does, so I just tried to write some stories that were based, or partly based, on my own experiences.