Annie Leibovitz Quotes

I think most of my songs are based on an emotion and in every song I write, there's at least a partial truth.

As a stand up, and often in acting, there is no place for the most intense feelings. Rage, genuine sorrow, naked hope... These things don't fit on a comedy stage and if you act you'll get to express them once in a while. Music is a place for the intensely personal.

I'm singing what I want to sing based on the emotion of what that day feels like. That's what comes out of my mouth and guitar. That impacts people. They know anything can happen.

Emotional honesty transcends reality; it's what allows disbelief to be suspended and yet what makes a story stay true.

I'm not afraid to write my feelings in songs.

Emotional messiness is my reason for life. In acting, it's so important.

In a world where irony reigns, where you have to separate, protect and laugh at anything that is honest or has an emotional charge, I bet for catharsis. I like to invest emotionally in things. And catharsis, when it touches the emotional vein, can open the doors of even those who protect themselves.

Whatever it is that I feel, I express it! I am free with my joy, my laughter, my pleasure, my pain, and I am blessed in that way as an actress that I can access those feelings within myself and not be ashamed to show whatever that is that's appropriate for the character.

What's the point of a song if you can't be honest?

I use myself for each part. Naturally, it's my body, it's my soul, it's my feelings. That's the only way I know how to work. I couldn't pretend.

Acting deals with very delicate emotions. It is not putting up a mask. Each time an actor acts he does not hide; he exposes himself.

An actress must be a woman whose emotional perceptions are true, and to make them so, she must have a fine contempt for any art or thought that betrays them for something false.

I write songs from the heart, and I don't hold back.

If I don't cry while writing a key emotional scene, my gut feeling is it's failed.

I think anything emotional adds to your acting and singing, no matter what it is that you go through. It will always add to it, never take away.

I feel what I sing, and I sing what I feel. Really, that's all I can do.

Acting is a form of confession.

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.

The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That's how I feel now, no matter what you're doing.

The hardest thing to get is true emotion. I always believe you need to earn that with the audience. You can't just tell them, 'Ok, be sad now.'

To have a songwriter that wrote so specifically what I felt to be true... I've never been much of an actor either. If something is real for me, then I can do it.

For me, the most effective cabaret evenings have been some of the most personal ones, where the performer is comfortable enough to simply be themselves.

A lot of times when I'm writing lyrics, I just think about insecurities that I might have and turn them into a scene. Some things may be true, and some things may not.

There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any human being, sometimes I can't help but wonder - 'What are the people I know going to think about this?' So I have to remind myself that all is permissible. Art has to be a free space. Language has to be a free space.

If I write when I'm low, it will be a dark song, but I don't care. I want to be honest with myself at all times.