James Gray Quotes

My work is intensely personal.

I make films for the 16-year-old in myself sometimes.

In everything I do, I find some of myself, or a lot of myself, and put it into the role.

That's something that I think the best artists retain - the ability to invite you into their small, intimate inner space, and let that be what radiates.

I always look for genuineness. If I feel I can connect with the audience, I will try to develop it. For example, the genesis of 'Kannathil Muthamittal' was an article published in a magazine.

Everything I make starts very personally.

I feel I'm all over my movies. I know my movies are all over me.

I needed freedom to really express myself. That's really what Justified is about.

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.

'Santa Sangre' is the picture I love the best, myself, because 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain' I made with my head, and 'Santa Sangre' I made with my feelings, with my heart. It's an emotional picture. And it's more real for me, that picture.

Well, I make every song I sing personal. I've never chosen a song that wasn't.

Even if you try to copy a film shot by shot, you still can't. It's still your own film.

There is always going to be a little bit of me in each character.

For me, art really starts with acceptance, self trust. Wherever you come to with art, it's perfect. You don't have to come with anything. What you bring to something is the art. That's where it's found. It's found within you.

Whether it be in acting, music, or even in dancing, I only want to do things that I truly connect to, and with my music, it's everything that I am.

No one was creating and I always wanted to be created on.

Part of the very impulse of writing for me is actually wanting to get away from myself.

Finding your style is like putting puzzle pieces together.

If you are a creative person, you try to create things that are an extension of yourself.

I think it's an okay thing to express yourself.

I write a lot of lyrics and I'm involved in the producing process, because it's like, if I'm singing it, I want it to be something that I can relate to.

I'm starting to find my own style.

Art, in the first place, has to connect with yourself.

Some day I'm gonna be gone and people will be listening to my songs and conjuring me up. In order for that to happen, you gotta put something of yourself in it.

My lyrics come from my experiences growing up in life, trying to find out and express who I am. That's basically it. I'm not trying to be a prophet or anything like that. I'm just reflecting on life.