Matt Smith Quotes

Soul is about authenticity. Soul is about finding the things in your life that are real and pure.

People can hear my songs are coming from something real. I mean what I say; I'm not just writing to impress critics or young girls, or older girls. The way I talk is the way I write a song.

One of the things that defines a country song for me is that it's honest. It's not putting on a tuxedo to go eat at the Burger King. It's about a song being emotionally true to itself.

There's a truth to the fact that it's hard to be real. It's easy to be indulgent. It's easy to be bubble gum, but it's hard to find a real thing that really makes your soul tick. It's painful and honest. It can be more challenging than just a sad song.

Don't fake what you feel. I've never been about that. I never will be about that.

People like seeing people being human and real, and I think that's been lacking on TV.

There's a genuineness that I hope I offer to viewers.

It's just about being honest. I listen to a lot of stuff that's out there, some of which I wrote, and I'm like, 'Where is that? Where's the honesty?' So that's what I want to get to in my music now.

I believe that my work has been well-received because it is authentic. All people really want are authenticity and truth.

The most important thing to me is that it's all really raw.

I think, a lot of times, the mistake in music - even rappers that are trying to be big time - if you're broke, rap about being broke. If you're sensitive, rap about being sensitive, 'cause there are other sensitive people. If you're sensitive, but you talk about being a tough person that doesn't care about anything, people will call your bluff.

I just keep it real, and I have written songs from my heart and performed them how they should be performed.

At my shows, I like everyone to have a good time... but, I like for us to be real because there's freedom in that.

I want people to stay true to who they are and how they're feeling. That's the biggest rule for myself - to always be as real as I can.

I love to write honest songs that name real people, then get up onstage and live out those emotions in front of 15,000 people.

In my experience, it tends to be a real reflection of someone's intelligence, confidence and sensitivity when they can just be real.

Sometimes, I have to really monitor myself, but the only monitoring job I really do on myself on stage is, Is this truthful? Is this truthful? Is this truthful? Ideally, I send it in a flow of truth.

One of the things that attracted me to Barack [Obama] was his emotional honesty. Right off the bat he said what he felt. There are no games with him - he is who he appears to be.

Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don't worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent.

I'm not writing just classic-sounding songs, but songs that come from experience.

When you are just you, without thinking or trying to say something special, just saying what is on your mind and how you feel, then there is naturally self-respect.

Never allow yourself externally to portray anything that you have not inwardly experienced and which is not even interesting to you.

Beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic.

Acting is about being real, being honest.

There's not much that I'm closed off about, and the universe gave me all that so I could help people feel like they don't have to be something they're not or feel like they have to fake happy. There's nothing worse than being fake happy.