Katherine Center Quotes

As a fan, I connect with realness. Whether it's strong or vulnerable, if it's real, I can connect with it.

Most writers write from their own experiences. That is where the honesty and intensity of emotions come from.

I think that the best way you can get honesty across in your music to connect and relate to people is to be motivated by personal emotions, stories and feelings.

By putting myself out there the way I've been doing people see me as a real person. Even though I do character voices and funny noises the stories are still real and I put them all out there.

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.

Some of the writers I admire who seem very, very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the reader without giving too much of themselves away. Lorrie Moore comes to mind, as does David Sedaris. When they write, the reader thinks that they're being trusted as a friend.

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

The more you're writing absolutely honestly, and absolutely bare of intention - even if it feels absolutely personal and small because it's at your own scale - other people relate to it much more.

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 think when you're telling a story from inside of you that's genuine, people connect with it.

The key in telling stories that people relate to is, not surprisingly, vulnerability and authenticity. That means that letting people know the struggle behind your brand - the failures and mistakes - and how you got through them is really important.

I really do pride myself on being able to help other people tell their stories and bring out the best in them. But I still, every song I'm writing, I still need to relate to it. I still need to find my true self in it, or else it'll feel dishonest. I mean, everything has a queer meaning as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah, 'Mine' was inspired by a person, but it became much deeper than that. I obviously pulled lyrics... from stuff I was actually saying to this person and feeling about this person, but it was for people. I didn't want to make that song to impress that girl; I wanted to make that song to make people feel better.

Sometimes if you can tell one personal story with a lot of sincerity, it can become a universal story.

I'm still writing from personal experiences, which is what people connected with in the first place.

I'm not a gifted storyteller, so I write what I know and hope that honesty resonates with other people's experiences.

Love is universal, luckily, but also in general I've found that whenever I've been the most specific in my stand-up, revealing some weird neurosis or quirk I'm ashamed of, that's what people relate to the most. Specificity is key!

I hope that people can relate to my music, it's very relatable, it's very fun, it's very honest. It's very, very, honest. I know that my fans will probably learn a lot about me by listening to my music, if they really listen to the lyrics. I'm sure they'll learn about a new side to me, it's all very honest, I don't put on any... there's no fake-ness to it, it's very real and I hope my fans can relate to it and that it's enjoyable for all ages.

In my opinion, trying to guess what readers want is the wrong approach. You have to tell your story as best you can and as true to yourself as possible. You have to be honest and fair and vulnerable and foolish and brave, and not care what anyone thinks of it.

Autobiography is not important. Authenticity is important. The writer must fire herself through the text, be the molten stuff that welds together disparate elements. I believe there is always exposure, vulnerability, in the writing process, which is not to say it is either confessional or memoir. Simply, it is real.

Sex makes you get real.

I've come to realize that people connect more when they know you're telling them the truth or some aspect of your story, some mutated version of how you are experiencing this life.

For two extraordinary years I have been working on it - learning to write - but mostly learning how to tell the truth. At first it is quite impossible. You make yourself better than anybody, then worse than anybody, and when you finally come to see you are "like" everybody - that is the bitterest blow of all to the ego. But in the end it is only the truth, no matter how ugly or shameful, that is right, that fits together, that makes real people, and strangely enough - beauty.

What I write is emotionally honest and truthful as the human experience can be, to make people feel less alone, or at least that's the hope.

I think I see the difference now, between loving someone from afar and loving someone up close. When you see them up close, you see the real them, but they also get to see the real you.