Paul Auster Quotes

The great thing about a song is that no one has to know your story. But if you tell it in a way that has clarity and means something to somebody else, then it can apply to their story.

Nobody is so weird others can't identify with them.

Probably above all other things, I am interested as a writer in making a connection, interested in the parts of all of us that connect.

When a story is told really well and is real, even if it's not about their own lives, people can apply it to themselves.

My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.

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.

I love the fact that people can relate to what I'm saying, even if it's not for the same subject I was writing about. That is the power of real music and real expression.

I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it.

I've always believed you go to literature to find the shared human experience, not the categorized human experience.

Stories are the common ground that allow people to connect, despite all our defences and all our differences.

The Big Chill is one of those things that everybody can identify with. Between eight characters, they can pick somebody who's somewhat like them.

You say to yourself: 'What could people, in all these countries, find in my books?' and yet I think we're all the same, anywhere. Everybody is a hero or a dramatic person in their own story if you just know where to look.

I had discovered that I'm much less special than I thought I am. So whatever I find true for myself, other people might also relate to.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation.

Everybody goes through a lot of the same things, and I talk about those, and that's the key. You have to connect with your audience, and I might take them on a trip with me, tell them I went here and I went there and they'll go with me, you know, to hear the stories.

I've loved taking on roles that have a very universal message that lots of people can identify and relate to - and at the end of the day can get people talking.

The audience likes a speaker with the same weakness and the same virtues that they themselves have.

I always wrote for myself. I figured I'm not that different from other people. If there's a story I like a lot, there's got to be others with similar tastes.

There's been so much that I've shared with the world, and by doing so, it's helped me connect with others on a whole new level. I love that, as I want people to watch 'Total Divas' and be able to relate themselves to what we go through. My hopes are that they realize we are all in this 'thing called life' together.

Most people think they don't have anything to relate to a drag queen, but shockingly there's a lot we can talk about.

I want someone to look at me and find a little of themselves in me.

A lot of the emotions we portray are universal themes that resonate with everyone, so the fact that people feel invested in our partnership is truly remarkable.

It's so easy to call something a Jewish story or a gay story or a woman's story. Aesthetically, if a story is not universal, it has failed. Your obligation is to the story. One rule creatively, and emotionally, is its universality.

I think our music is more about seeing ourselves in each other and trying to find a more humanistic viewpoint for the world.

I’m trying to make other people recognize something of themselves rather than me.