Prue Leith Quotes

I think marriage and family keeps being written about because that's where we keep our reputations with ourselves - I mean, we can't quite slip the truths we reveal about ourselves at home.

To have a songwriter that wrote so specifically what I felt to be true... I've never been much of an actor either. If something is real for me, then I can do it.

It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.

A lot of the work I've done has been about being very raw and open with your emotions.

I just write about how I'm feeling at the time. If I feel like being cheeky and a bit straight up and a bit aggressive, you'll hear that in my music. If I feel like being very vulnerable and opening up about something personal, you'll hear that, too.

The most confronting thing you can do is talk about your feelings and open yourself up.

I try as hard as I can to write from a personal place and be genuine.

I feel like I can't write something that has a real emotion in it if I can't connect to that emotion.

Each day I feel a little differently; some times I try to write something that's fictitious and then there's other times where I try to write something that's true.

I think that people respond to honesty in music, so I only choose songs that are the truth for me.

The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.

The only problems I've ever had with being honest is telling people how I feel about them or saying how I feel about other people.

Anything I've ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

What I do is I write mainly about very personal and rather lonely feelings, and I explore them in a different way each time. You know, what I do is not terribly intellectual. I'm a pop singer for Christ's sake. As a person, I'm fairly uncomplicated.

I've been the type of guy, I've always been very forthcoming with how I feel. And that it doesn't make you less of a man to like go and be like, 'This is how I feel about you. This is the truth.'

Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.

If I write when I'm low, it will be a dark song, but I don't care. I want to be honest with myself at all times.

I'm not afraid to use my personal experiences and put them into a song. I think that's when you get the best stuff anyway, when it's real emotion.

I don't think of my songs as sad songs. I think of them as vulnerable and honest. I crack jokes in between songs, so people don't leave feeling too dark.

I don't think you get to good writing unless you expose yourself and your feelings. Deep songs don't come from the surface; they come from the deep down. The poetry and the songs that you are suppose to write, I believe are in your heart.

Everything I write is highly personal, but put in such a way that it's not dropping everything in someone's lap. Although sometimes I think 'The Taxi Ride' embarrasses me, because sometimes I think it's too close.

I never judge my own songwriting. It's just my heart. What's there to judge about your own heart?

It is always easier to write from the heart and deal with things in the present.

People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that's not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music.

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.