Roseanne Barr Quotes

In stand-up it really helps to play yourself and talk about your own feelings. You cannot fail to be original if you're just talking about what you think about X, Y and Z. Unless you've got a twin brother who's also a stand-up.

What I've learned over the years is that the craft of songwriting is trying to take the personal and make it universal - or in the case of telling a story, taking the universal and making it personal.

Honestly, I want to make more music for the women. I rather have a show full of girls, but I still gotta talk about what I be personally going through, what I've gone through, and what the homies go through.

If I'm saying a universal truth, but maybe it's something that people don't feel comfortable saying... It's a strange take, but at the same time, what you're hitting on is kind of right. You can relate. That's the heart of comedy. You have to have a point of view. You gotta commit. And the more you commit to it, sometimes the funnier it gets.

I always try to attack the most honest issues I can in my comedy.

I never sit down to write anything personal unless I know the subject is going to go beyond my own experience and address something larger and more universal.

Everything is an open book. I don't speak on other people's hardship, but if it happened in my life or something that has been an experience on my particular journey, I'm going to talk about it. That's what my fan base appreciates the most. I'm universal. You can relate to the things I say or that I go through.

I always thought that the fastest way for me to get ahead and get noticed and to do well was to make my act very accessible. When I first started, I talked about family stuff, my dog, my cat. It was all I knew back then; I wasn't forcing anything, but I wasn't like, 'Hey, don't you hate doing homework?'

Great art, the more specific you are, the more universal it becomes, and that's the thing that I loved about 'The Wire.'

Drama is more universal. We all cry about the same stuff. But comedy is very specific: It depends on where you were born, how old you are, your social-economic status. It's very complicated to make people laugh.

If I'm talking about girls and stuff, it's usually the truth. So now, you know, if you hear my songs, you are gonna appreciate it differently because usually, it's the truth.

And I think comedy obviously a great way to get a message out because you know the reason why things are funny is because they're true.

Even though I was super personal with 'American Teen,' I want to tap in and not just tell my own stories but tell the stories of other people - so that I can help as many people as possible.

More than anything, I write about what I know. The experiences that I've had in my life and that we've all had collectively, that's what we draw from.

My type of humor is almost pure identification. A housewife reads my column and says, 'But that's happened to ME! I know just what she's talking about!

A few things I've noticed about myself as a listener, and the music that I relate to and the music that's continued to mean something to me since I was a little kid or a teenager, is that they're songs that tell stories and songs that come from a place of experience.

Everything I write is mostly relatable to everyone and since everyone cannot write, they feel like Sudha Murthy is writing their story. I am your writer next-door.

I think what happens with a lot of writing and art is that specificity ends up being relatable while universality becomes vague.

What I have that's special in my music is substance. It's music that people can really relate to. I know I'm gonna rap something that somebody has already been through in their life, something that they will understand.

You have to be so honest in comedy.

Here's the thing: we don't write music for a universal statement; we just share our experiences. And that's all it is. It's always raw and very authentic.

I'm not a gifted storyteller, so I write what I know and hope that honesty resonates with other people's experiences.

I like to write about lots of things in real life that people can relate to, that people can I guess connect with and the fans could understand what I'm talking about.

I made 'Free Game' based on personal experiences, what I been through, my life, exposing people to the fact that I'm in the streets.

People want things that address their everyday reality, and that goes for stuff that isn't political - with singer-songwriter music, people want things that touch them.