Philip Roth Quotes

I think the success of my work stems from being truthful.

If you have value as an artist it's probably going to be in your capacity to let things inside you get past things that are placed there to keep you from telling the truth. The more you see things as clearly and coldly as you can, the more value you're going to have.

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.

All of my music is honest.

I'm more honest in my lyrics than I am in anything else. It's where I feel the most safe to express myself.

I try to really say what I think is happening, and I'm pretty forthright. I obviously hold back some things. But pretty much, what I see and feel, I say on the air.

I think art is much more valuable when it's honest. If it's not honest, it's just propaganda.

I don't do all the things I say I do in my songs, but nobody does.

It's just about being honest. I listen to a lot of stuff that's out there, some of which I wrote, and I'm like, 'Where is that? Where's the honesty?' So that's what I want to get to in my music now.

If you're going to be transparent, you're going to have to let the music come that wants to come.

As soon as me and Willow started releasing music, that's one thing that the whole world took away is, okay, they unlocked another step of honesty. If these guys can be honest about everything, then we can be more honest.

My gift to my children would be from me to be as honest and true to myself as an artist, and put that out there to the best of my ability.

I need you to do more than survive. As writers, as revolutionaries, tell the truth, your truth in your own way. Do not buy into their system of censorship, imagining that if you drop this character or hide that emotion, you can slide through their blockades. Do not eat your heart out in the hope of pleasing them.

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.

I am quite certain in my heart of hearts that modern music and modern art is not a conspiracy, but is a form of truth and integrity for those who practise it honestly, decently and with all their being.

I think that people respond to honesty in music, so I only choose songs that are the truth for me.

What's the point of a song if you can't be honest?

When you eliminate vanity from an art form, and I would think that this would be any art form, what is left is an opportunity to be incredibly naked and truthful.

Music to me is about being honest, and it's what I've always pictured music as. I don't see the point of expressing yourself if you are going to be cryptic about it.

I want that every piece of art be honest, never mind what it is about.

The only honest and generous thing for me to do is to give people myself. That's all I've got as an artist, so I want to do that in an unflinching way.

There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said.

The best strips are the most honest. That's just the truth of it.

There's a bit of truth in everything I do, you know.

I write about what I know.