Lily Rabe Quotes

They are imaginary characters. But perhaps not solely the products of my imagination, since there are some aspects of the characters that relate to my own experience of a wide variety of people.

People ask, 'Are your things autobiographical?,' and I think, no, they're not autobiographical directly, but of course my life has informed my work.

When I write a song, it comes from the heart and is based on a specific experience. You can't really say that one experience is greater than another, because all of your experiences take you through life on this journey.

Some writers such as John Cheever and Raymond Carver seem to draw artistic energy from analyzing the realm of their own experiences - their social circles and memories and mores. I'm one of those who draw creative energy from the opposite.

I've always had a certain fascination. It's basically paint what you know, and this is what I grew up with.

A lyric has to mean something to me, something that has happened to me.

Sometimes when you're writing a song and that song comes into your head, it definitely comes from somewhere, like a real experience.

A big part of why I wanted to go to college is to meet people and make friends.

There's nothing particularly unique about my experiences except that they're my experiences.

I suppose with any character that you play you always bring your personal experience to it. You always bring people that you know or that you've met and sort of - this is what I do, I mean, I don't know what anyone else does - but people that you know or that you've met that have affected you in certain ways, you bring into it.

I, like a lot of people who are creative, need to step away. I can't have stuff to write about if I don't have a life. If I talk to people, hang out with my friends and hang out with my husband, I feel like I have better things to bring to the table.

I think for an artist it's really important to have experiences, and I've had a lot of those. It's definitely inspired my lyrics and my style, even down to what I wear.

I meet people from different walks of life that I can have relationships with.

The people who can step up my experience are those who have a common set of experiences with people I know. Think about it. How often did a total stranger come into your life to make your evening better? Not very often. But the friend of your friend? That happens all the time.

You're basically the sum of all the experiences you've ever had, and they're sort of shaken up in you and reproduced in the things you create, and that includes seeing movies.

I only know from my own personal experience, and I personally feel that there's a cyclical nature to things, so you don't want to start making generalizations about how bad things have become in comparison to the old days.

Art has this ability to allow you to connect back through history in the same way that biology does. I'm always looking for source material.

My experience with songwriting is usually so confessional, it's so drawn from my own life and my own stories.

So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.

Everybody's got one killer story. It doesn't take talent to tell that story, it just takes experience.

I think a valid approach to being a musician is to take all of the experience of your life and filter it through your personality and send it back out there, and that's what art is.

As I experience life and go through things, that's what I write about.

I don't think events in your life affect your music.

Some would argue that you're as successful as the company you keep. Certainly there is a connection between our friends and who we are.

Actually, I only have a few friends in real life. And when I say friends, I'm referring to those people who I've known since the 1960s.