Michael O'Donoghue Quotes

There are parts of me that I keep secret even from myself. I have demons and I'd love to be able to healthily look at the demons and still be a wonderful actor and not feel I need them to create.

I'm terrified of therapy because I don't want it to mess with my creativity.

Those artists who say that somehow therapy or analysis will thwart their creativity are completely misinformed. It's absolutely the opposite: it opens closed doors.

'Psychotherapy' is a private, confidential conversation that has nothing to do with illness, medicine, or healing.

I think a novel has to be about where you are at a given moment in time. I think it really needs to represent some specific pain you're going through. it's not just a story.

I went to a psychotherapist for a year and a bit, and it was fantastic. I went in with a very clear question: I couldn't work out why I behaved in a certain way in certain situations, and I got that answered.

Psychotherapy is a sanctuary; it is a battleground; it is a place I have been psychotic, neurotic, elated, confused, and despairing beyond belief.

The writer needs to react to his or her own internal universe, to his or her own point of view. If he or she doesn't have a personal point of view, it's impossible to be a creator.

Everyone thinks these are self-portraits but they aren't meant to be. I just use myself as a model because I know I can push myself to extremes, make each shot as ugly or goofy or silly as possible.

All my songs come from me because I only seem able to write about myself and my experiences.

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

You have to have the time to feel sorry for yourself in order to be a good abstract expressionist.

Emotional messiness is my reason for life. In acting, it's so important.

Therapy was incredibly enlightening. I don't think it's only necessary if you're unwell - it's a useful tool for me to understand my own mind and how it works.

I think a lot of creative people are uncomfortable with therapy. Because you're basically trying to 'solve' the unconscious. And the unconscious is where it all comes from.

Acting is therapy. It keeps you in contact with your feelings.

My films are always a reflection of where I am in my life.

Without meaning to sound crass, I've never had any psychological... help. It's because I feel my work is so revealing about who I am and what I am trying to understand about myself. It's a therapeutic process.

I'm not really interested in myself in my writing. I can't see myself in the songs, even though I know different parts of me are there.

It's always been most important for me to figure out "my space" rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute. Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself-- and that's essential for any artist, I think.

'Taxi Driver' wasn't autobiographical in terms of the actual events, but I did draw on my own mental state.

Anyone who has problems, or worries, anyone who laughs and cries, anyone who feels can write. It's only talking on paper... talking about the things that matter to us.

Thank God for being a writer, because you do sort of find out what you think by the process of writing.

I look at the artistic process as like experiencing the world, channeling it through your personality and sending it back out there. That's the process.

I went into acting as psychotherapy, and it's still a work in progress.