Pete Townshend Quotes

I'm a big emotional mess. I try to talk about things that people don't like to talk about, especially in music. Hopefully it reaches someone and lets them access their vulnerability. That's what I want it to accomplish.

The loss of my mom really inspired me to go to a place with my performances that were emotionally honest, and I found that audiences really responded to that. People need to see heartbreak transformed into beauty.

Experiences are like hoarded gold. Whenever I dole out a piece of my private suffering, that is when I get letters from all over the world.

I guess when you write a personal story, people feel compelled to share their own stories.

I've never been uncomfortable putting my heart on display, my feelings on display, certainly with an audience.

I think you can feel the pain I've experienced in my music. It's something that a lot of people can relate to.

It was really important that 'Dream' kept the balance of strength and total vulnerability - which was my exact headspace when it was being written.

Being vulnerable was difficult for me at first because I've said things in my songs about how I felt that I never told anybody.

With so much of what I write, I'm just constantly wondering out loud, 'Do other people feel this way?'

I say what I'm feeling, and a lot of people feel the same way.

You do try to write songs that you feel like people can relate to and you try to be as honest as you can so that people hear your records and they feel like, "Oh, my god. This is exactly how I feel. I went through this."

It's just that I don't want to be somebody's crush. If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too.

Something about telling that story made my gut grow back together." What?" Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud." That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of." The people who've been in your secret hiding places." The people you bite your thumb in front of." Hi." Hi." ..." ..." Wow. My first Lindsey." My second Colin." That was fun. Let's try it again." Sold." ..." ..." ...".

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.

The hardest thing in the world to play is something close to myself.

I want feelings to be expressed, to be open, to be natural, not to be looked on as strange. It's not weird if you feel deeply.

The idea is that for ten minutes, we forget that we have feelings. And we forget about protecting ourselves or other people and we just say the truth. For ten minutes. And then we can go back to being lame.

Aziz winked at him slowly and said: “...There are many ways of being a man; mine is to express what is deepest in my heart.

The songs that you start to write that you are a little scared of can be the ones that you have to tell.

I tend to lose myself in the moment. I’m not very good at holding back. I don’t know how to do this without feeling everything. My emotions are the tool I use to perform.

I think a lot of people don't wear their hearts on their sleeves. I think people should, but a lot of people don't. People may be a bit taken back sometimes about how honest I am and how open I am. But I'm happier this way - it's a good thing for me.

Most people don't know what they want or feel. And for everyone, myself included, It's very difficult to say what you mean when what you mean is painful. The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to... As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really express it all.

I also sing about my mom leaving me a lot - a lot of kids have their moms or dads leave them, so they relate to that. I wear my heart on my sleeve, so I think that's what the kids love.

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.

In interviews, on the set, talking to people, I'll just start talking about my parents' divorce, and go on and on. My mom's always like, 'You don't have to be that honest. You have to be more fake.' You see some of these actors, they have a permanent smile on their face. How can they do that? It really fascinates me.