Paul Auster Quotes

I probably shouldn't treat interviews as therapy sessions, but I don't keep a diary, so these end up being my way of keeping track of where I'm at and letting it all out.

I hit 'record' whenever I'm going through a really hard time. I don't listen to it for a couple of days, so I have some perspective. If it's too personal to share, and I feel like would alienate the listeners, then I usually don't share that stuff.

A lot of my fears come out in my work rather than life.

I find it easier to write about stuff that is frustrating.

Music is escapism from the grim realities of life. But then as soon as you escape into the music, from my point of view, I found I had to deal with the very things that I thought I was running away from. I wanted to hit those problems on the head and resolve them. So they didn't remain as issues in my psyche.

I realize I have made a lot of mistakes and done things wrong. I've done things I wish I could have done in another way. I didn't come in with the same kind of desperation that I may have had on the first or second record. I didn't come in thinking, 'Oh God, please. I hope this does well because I have nothing else and I worked so hard at this.'

I think in a moment of weakness, you might surprise yourself.

Fine," Connor tells him. "Think about stuff until your head explodes. But the only thing I want to think about is surviving to eighteen." I find your shallowness both refreshing and disappointing at the same time. Do you think that means I need therapy?

You start to realize connections between experiences and things that push your buttons, and things that have touched you in those vulnerable areas and what-have-you. And they form a little collection over time - at least I do - and as time progresses and new things are learned, you kind of sift through those things until they're air or danceable, you know? But they start as this thing that's either too hard or too soft to dance to.

One of the things that draws writers to writing is that they can get things right that they got wrong in real life by writing about them.

I don't see any harm in letting whatever comes out come out of you, even if it's sort of weird, or dark, or painful, or too embarrassing, or whatever. I feel like you might as well get it down for yourself. It can't do anything but help you get to where you want to be by recognizing the thoughts that you're having.

I'd do a song in the studio and it would explain everything I'm going through so perfectly that when I went home and I felt down I could listen to that to make me feel better. It's a documentation of my life. I think it's just important to put it out there.

But perhaps the best part of all was that I, Sydney Katherine Sage, guilty of constantly analyzing the world around me, well, I stopped thinking.

It's around midnight. After I left Dad, my choice was to either become very drunk or write this. I chose to write this. It felt kind of now-or-never for me.

Golf is good for the soul. You get so mad at yourself you forget to hate your enemies.

We have real difficulty here because everyone thinks of changing the world, but where, oh where, are those who think of changing themselves? People may genuinely want to be good, but seldom are they prepared to do what it takes to produce the inward life of goodness that can form the soul. Personal formation into the likeness of Christ is arduous and lifelong.

If you think the cause of your problem is 'out there,' you'll try to solve it from the outside. Take the shortcut: solve it from within.

I think about Lenaya and Hugh. Will they know how much I've changed this year? Will they have changed too? I'll wait until tomorrow to find out. And then it's possible I won't find out after all. Because some changes happen deep down inside of you. And the truth is, only you know about them. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.

You might have one thing in your head, but the things you're doing don't really lead down the right road, necessarily. When you're young, you don't want to hear that. You think you can do everything, be all things.

I'm not the kind of person that's so self-confident that I would ever think I had recorded anything great. I know that whenever we finish an album and turn it in, I know that in my deepest heart of hearts that we did the best that we could. Only time goes on to tell what I will think of it 10 years later or if people will listen to it forever or if people will get tired of it.

I couldn't even think about wanting to be something else; I wouldn't let myself visualize another life. But I wrote because I couldn't stop. It was a release, a mental exercise, a way of keeping sane.

If you are willing to change your thinking, you can change your feelings. If you change your feelings, you can change your actions. And changing your actions - based on good thinking - can change your life.

I just don't see the point in beating myself up. I think it's more productive to concentrate on being a better person right now than punishing myself for who I was in the past.

The freedom of saying anything to him, telling all, relieved a burden I hadn't even realized I'd been carrying. In my relentless push to keep moving forward, there had been so many emotions I hadn't let myself inhabit fully, so many things I hadn't talked about. Now I couldn't quite catch up to myself.

You have had many sadnesses, large ones, which passed. ... But please, ask yourself whether these large sadnesses haven't rather gone right through you [that is, passed through you]. Perhaps many things inside you have been transformed; perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad.