R. Kelly Quotes

With 'A Northern Light,' I've already heard from teenage readers, teachers, librarians - it's been so gratifying. It's amazing that you can take something that matters so deeply to you and make it matter to someone else.

The little details really connect for people in ways I never realized before.I think that's why some of the movies have done well, because people are relating to things that I'm willing to expose.

My main goal as a songwriter is to make something that inspires people. To write things about my life that people can relate to. Whether it's a whole record or just one song for someone, I hope it can do that for them. Knowing that I have the ability to do that is inspiring to me.

Some of the writers I admire who seem very, very funny and very emotional to me can develop a closeness with the reader without giving too much of themselves away. Lorrie Moore comes to mind, as does David Sedaris. When they write, the reader thinks that they're being trusted as a friend.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

Music is emotional. Your job is to make people feel something. The best way to do that is to sing and speak from something they've personally been through. That's where I write from.

When I can write a song in a way where I feel like other people can relate to it, and I can take it past being cathartic just for me, that's when I know I can share it. Otherwise, I'd just feel like it's selfish.

Honestly, my goal is just to let people hear my story and just like, feed everybody that could relate to my story in any way.

Yeah, 'Mine' was inspired by a person, but it became much deeper than that. I obviously pulled lyrics... from stuff I was actually saying to this person and feeling about this person, but it was for people. I didn't want to make that song to impress that girl; I wanted to make that song to make people feel better.

I don't want to bore people with things that don't matter to them. I want to share parts of my life that are universally true with other people.

Sometimes if you can tell one personal story with a lot of sincerity, it can become a universal story.

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.

What I write is emotionally honest and truthful as the human experience can be, to make people feel less alone, or at least that's the hope.

I think people relate to the music because I have a sense of empathy, and I think I have a good understanding about relationships, and I talk about them in a real, honest way

You don't make movies about "men" and "women." You make movies about this guy and this woman and if you get them right, you'll automatically connect with a lot of people.

I show them the funny part, the silly part, the laughing part, the crazy part and then the really deep, deep part where I'm talking from my heart to these people. Because I've been through everything they've been through.

The - the sort of thing that I want to do is to strike a resonant chord of universality in other people, which is best done by fiction.

If I'm in something funny, I like to try and find some kind of serious line in it that people can relate to.

Fiction, at its best, is a radical act of intimacy. It seeks to join, to merge, to know deeply; and, as with intimacy, there is a way in which it cannot be faked.

I certainly wear my heart on my sleeve, and I think that comes out in the characters that I play. There's a yearning, or something, that comes out of me that people relate to.

With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

I feel that if I'm going through something, I'm sure someone else is, too. I try to be as honest with myself and others as I can be.

And that's what people want to see when they go to the theater. I believe at the end of the day, they want to see themselves - parts of their lives they can recognize. And I feel if I can achieve that, it's pretty spectacular.

Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.