Claudia Rankine Quotes

Words can have the same kind of magic as riffs can.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.

My songs tend to be about love. It drives some of the greatest songs. I'm looking forward to seeing what people make of my writing.

Yet, it ought to be obvious that good music generally occupies a higher plane that mere politics. Great writers can express moods through melody and capture experiences we share most powerfully - love, lust, longing; joy, rage, fear; triumph, yearning and confusion.

I love the art form of songwriting. I get to carry a lot of vibes to a lot of people. My songs are all about the human condition, and people will be able to find themselves in my songs.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

I'm trying to communicate here. I'm a communicator, I like to communicate, and if a million people buy it then we've touched a million people, if only 10 people buy it, then we've only touched 10, and that's important, because I'm satisfied with only 10. But, I love a million.

And when I play they know I exist, and it leaves a space when I go.

I saw a Shakespeare play when I was - I guess I was in junior high. And I just fell in love with the theater because, for me, it was a combination of big ideas and feeling.

The artists that I relate to and love the most are the ones where I can listen to the record, and I can know them better, and for me, that's writing it.

Whether it's an inspiring song or whether it's an entertaining song - whatever it might be about it - I just want people to feel the emotion that I put into it because I think emotion... is everything.

It's amazing what art can do.

I write songs that mean something to me because I want to connect with people and make them feel something too.

I want to be a voice people listen to and feel good or sad or whatever.

It's easy to just write about love, because everyone can relate, but I like variety.

Love is the sum of all the arts, as it is the reason for their existence.

Art is the most effective mode of communications that exists.

Most people who ask me what's my favorite song, expect that it's 'Midnight Train' or 'Neither One of Us.' But actually, it's always kinda been 'The Need to Be' because of what it says. I love the way that song was written, I love the melody, I love everything about it.

You know, I think music is very interactive. It's a - it's a language.

It doesn't matter what age you are, an effective song will move you.

It's strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words.

There is no art without Eros.

Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.

Things change and work changes. Right now I like the idea of enveloping a space and getting messages across that connect to the world in ways that seem familiar but are different.