Angelina Jolie Quotes

Music was a big outlet for me. Being able to play an instrument and sing was definitely a good way for me to escape things I was dealing with: family issues, growing up, being a kid and not knowing what I wanted to do with my life.

I feel I'm able to get rid of any demons lurking in my psyche through my writing, which leaves me free to create all of this and to enjoy our family life, stepping away from all the fictional traumas and the dramas. If I write about family in crisis, then I won't have to live through it, I guess.

I started writing to save my life.

Some people have therapy, some people are alcoholics or they're in AA. Some people jump out of planes on weekends or find ways to release this kind of thing. And for me, it's acting. I find acting very therapeutic for whatever it is.

I've suffered from an identity crisis my entire life. It's why I went into acting.

Generally, all my life, I have had strong friction with life - I was a problematic soldier, I was kicked out of the army, I was in fights. There was something about writing that was a way of experimenting with this emotion.

I think anything that's creative really takes my mind off whatever it is that I'm going through in my life. If you're going through heartbreak, and you can write a song, it's a wonderful win-win, because it takes your mind off the heartbreak, and you get to vent.

There have been periods in my life where I have experienced depression. It has been through some of my darkest moments that I have written some of my best songs. For me, singing and writing is very therapeutic. It's much more effective than taking Prozac!

I unfortunately had a lot of medical procedures throughout my life, so I decided to paint all of my surgeries as a way to heal and as a way to grow.

I was bullied; I was kind of a girl in the corner. So acting was a great outlet for me by pretending to be someone else.

The need to express one's self in writing springs from a maladjustment of life, or from an inner conflict which the adolescent (or the grown man) cannot resolve in action.

I'll figure something out by writing a song about it.

We all battling different things. Me? I'm just able to channel that through my music.

Music is an expression. It's almost like a diary in my life, you know. You express your perceptions and your view on life - your world view.

We all need ways of processing things. I think I was called to music because it was this thing that was always there for me that I could pour my heart into safely.

I write a lot because, if I don't, I start to panic, and I calm down when I write.

When I make my music, I try and speak to me. I try to go back and hear it, so my music gets me through the times, you know what I'm saying?

If I hadn't had the outlet of writing and drawing comics, I guess there's a good chance I wouldn't be around today.

I write songs when I need to. That's how I write songs: when there's something that's bugging me. If something's troubling me, and I don't really know how to articulate it to people directly - my friends, my family, or my girlfriend - then I'll write a song about it because I know I can articulate it that way.

I just block out the demons. I sing. I block them away. I put my pain into my music. I paint. I make my own videos. I direct myself. No one directs me anymore. I am in charge of my destiny.

Music really helps - singing is huge because it releases all the endorphins and gives me a real thrill. But I still have bad days.

I'll give up smoking when I die, and I'll settle down when I die. Until then, I'm gonna have a good time.

The aggressiveness of it attracted me to hip-hop because I was angry inside. I was an angry kid because of the sickle cell. So I liked the anger in hip-hop. That's what attracted me to it; that's what made me want to do it. It helped me get my aggression out.

As a child, I was mischievous and an attention-seeker, so acting came naturally to me.

If something's upsetting me, being able to go in and work on new music makes all the difference in the world.