Richard Simmons Quotes

My music is straightforward because I want to give people me and let them know they're not alone in going through the things that they go through.

Even though I was super personal with 'American Teen,' I want to tap in and not just tell my own stories but tell the stories of other people - so that I can help as many people as possible.

Dali Lama said, 'when you open the heart of the person with humor, you can tell him the most truth. But if you tell him truth without humor, the heart closes.'

I traffic in empathy. I try to be vulnerable with people so they can be vulnerable back. I've always been searching for empathy in other people. It's when I feel most not alone.

When humor works, it works because it's clarifying what people already feel. It has to come from someplace real.

On 'Awkward,' we really like to send the message out that we're relatable, and that we get what people are going through.

The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.

I hope people learn the power of vulnerability through my songs. I think vulnerability can save the world. Empathy helps people connect with each other.

There's this stress that is relieved when you realize somebody understands, and that's only going to happen if you feel the person who's writing the book or the people in the TV show aren't holding back.

Honestly, my goal is just to let people hear my story and just like, feed everybody that could relate to my story in any way.

I suppose my job is to describe spaces that are honest to me. And the goal, I suppose, is that the listener can hear themselves in some way in that song and also, in some way, hear me. And so if the listener is able to identify with my honesty then I'm being the most helpful I can possibly be.

Even if you can't relate to what I'm singing, I hope you can believe in it and see it as something that it is real.

If you're on the fence about speaking your truth or sharing your world with a greater audience, don't be. We need each other badly.

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

The delicate and infirm go for sympathy, not to the well and buoyant, but to those who have suffered like themselves.

I think people relate to the music because I have a sense of empathy, and I think I have a good understanding about relationships, and I talk about them in a real, honest way

People love to be listened to and represented, and they love it when they feel like you have some of the same problems that they do. Everybody deals with things like romantic difficulties in relationships and death and cancer and abuse.

I certainly wear my heart on my sleeve, and I think that comes out in the characters that I play. There's a yearning, or something, that comes out of me that people relate to.

Comedy's about opening up and being unique, but to a point where the audience can relate to what you're saying.

With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.

My approach is a very human one, as a fan.

Oprah's stock in trade has always been her powerful unmediated connection. She could feel your pain and empower you to talk about it.

I feel that if I'm going through something, I'm sure someone else is, too. I try to be as honest with myself and others as I can be.

What I would not like is to be ignored. I write from the heart. I don't write for me. I write for my readers.

My main goal as a songwriter is to make something that inspires people. To write things about my life that people can relate to. Whether it's a whole record or just one song for someone, I hope it can do that for them. Knowing that I have the ability to do that is inspiring to me.