Craig Ferguson Quotes

There's a lot of risk in putting what you suspect you really are into your music.

You can't ever create defensively. You just have to create the next thing that really speaks to you.

Any real piece of writing is an act of courage.

I was fooling everyone by surrounding myself with funny people. But then I put myself out there - writing my own sketches, going on stage with nobody surrounding me - and for some reason people were still laughing.

There's something liberating about not pretending. Dare to embarrass yourself. Risk.

Letting go of things and not being afraid of being ridiculous or over the top - I think that's the main thing for me to work on.

This is what I believe about performing: There is no reason to be on stage - there is no reason to be there - if you're not going to put all your baggage somewhere else and just be honest. Whatever you're doing - screw it up, do great - just be there, and be honest. That's the most important thing.

I'm always looking for something that's real and that's got meat on it. I think it's artistic suicide if you're too vain, or if you're afraid to play ugly. I would never fall for that.

Some stars like to hide behind the whole idea of acting. But really good actors are not hiding at all. They're not afraid to be disliked, to be a little unsavoury.

Songwriting is the most terrifying thing to me, because you are really laying your heart out there.

You must take the risk to disclose yourself in order to become more real, more human. And even if the price is high.

What I've found - and the older I get, the more I understand this and stand behind it - is, my whole life has been an exploration of telling the truth. It's scary to be truthful, and it's scary to reveal yourself, and I'm very attracted to doing things that scare me.

From a place of truth, I think artists or actors have to be real with what they're doing.

There are some beautiful things about people like Katy Perry, who are bold enough to go up on a pink cotton-candy cloud, with a guitar, in a tutu, and sing all by herself.

To make music that means something, you kind of have to drop the cool. You have to be prepared and willing to be uncool.

The people I'm inspired by and I listen to are all ballsy, and I feel like I'm closer to an artist when they're open and honest.

It's always been a mantra to me, when making music or creating art, that you have to be vulnerable.

Christine and the Queens is about not being safe.

The speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.

I love being vulnerable. It's scary. I feel like the best stuff that I have ever written can come from real vulnerable places.

I think it's good to be a little more fearless in saying what you feel. In not being scared of the repercussions of that.

'Birdman' came from a very beautiful side of me, from a part of honesty and surrender about things.

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.

In all the writers I admire, the common detonator is their courage to walk naked.

You must be willing to risk everything to really express it all.