Jon Batiste Quotes

You write who you are somehow. Even if you try to not to. You can't help but write who you are. I'm just not a very cynical person. I believe in the humanity of people, whether it is just the guys in 'The Full Monty' or Aron Ralston.

I also have a different, softer side, and I want for people to hear that.

The only thing I wanted to do in my music is be human and communicate all the aspects of that, which often means being vulnerable.

I'm a man of many emotions, so I'm a human being, and I think that's what people tend to forget sometimes.

I guess you could say that no matter what the characters are enduring, I try to make them retain their humanity. Their self-absorbed, grouchy, selfish, aggravating humanity.

I would like to show that I have a heart, that I am a human being and I have feelings. And to be this kind of role model, not only for beauty pageants but also for life.

After this whole acting thing is over and done, you eventually have to be human. Some people are never human. It's very weird.

Technology is teaching us to be human again.

I'll meet someone on the street and blurt out my most intimate details. I think everybody secretly - or not so secretly - wants to be understood, and I just want to connect, you know?

Love comes when manipulation stops; when you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable.

I don't have to research humanity, I just have to be courageous enough to share that part of myself with everybody.

Sometimes, we only get to know someone as one aspect of who they are. Then you start peeling back the layers and understanding more and more about who they are - their vulnerabilities, their fears, their joys, all those other words that equal humanity.

The more I'm committed to finding a way to genuinely be immersed in someone else's life, the more enjoyment there is in it. I've never been interested in smoke and mirrors and cutting corners. I'd rather just do it for real.

The main thing in life is not to be afraid of being human.

People come to the theatre in search of a real encounter with other human beings, and we must give them what they come for. Our capacity to do that is the measure of being human. And if the price is that we sometimes say something not very pleasant - well, that's precisely why people want us, in the end: because we speak the truth.

I know that my son was an honest person and an honest artist, and what he gave from himself through his art was the depth of his humanity.

Love is a universal thing that everyone understands. Love, like death, is the only thing that binds humanity.

Twitter helped others to see me as a human being. And showed me their humanity, too.

I always at least try to come from some sort of human place no matter how ridiculous the character is. That's really awesome. That is more the work that I'm leaning towards doing.

The true artform is being a human being.

Reading and discovering fiction has taught me how to empathise, understand falling in love and all those complex relationships that people have to deal with.

My work has always been about authentic feeling, and I think we live in a time where we need that.

Real intimacy is only possible to the degree that we can be honest about what we are doing and feeling.

A certain amount of anger doesn't make us less empathetic, less humane, less loving. It just makes us real.

If you make music for the human needs you have within yourself, then you do it for all humans who need the same things. You enrich humanity with the profound expression of these feelings.