Robert Henri Quotes

Actors are pretending for you, but they're not lying. They are not putting on a guise instead of themselves. They are finding things inside that they have experienced.

I like emotions, but I really don't like sentimentality, and I don't like when things break their spell.

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

One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions.

For me, acting comes straight from the heart. In that sense I don't act at all. I think that to feel the character's pain I have to be myself. Somewhere audiences see that.

Emotion is messy, contradictory... and true.

I feel like I can't write something that has a real emotion in it if I can't connect to that emotion.

The most important thing is to be true to yourself, however you feel, and not try to feel or behave differently because you think you should, or someone has told you how you must feel. But do think about it. Unexamined feelings lead to all kinds of trouble.

I don't think you get to good writing unless you expose yourself and your feelings.

I want to express my feelings, not illustrate them.

Goddamn it, FEELING is what I like in art, not CRAFTINESS and the hiding of feelings.

There's a truth to the fact that it's hard to be real. It's easy to be indulgent. It's easy to be bubble gum, but it's hard to find a real thing that really makes your soul tick. It's painful and honest. It can be more challenging than just a sad song.

I try to be genuine. I try to be real. It's such a subjective thing, but I try to convey an emotion.

I would feel really dishonest writing a song that was really sassy, or really confident, because I'm not a supremely confident being. I think that's what people find interesting about what I do; it's very different lyrically.

There is a difference, of course, between real sentiment and the trash of shared experience.

Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.

Its funny because when I did feel like I came out and I just felt like I was being truthful to myself, (it was at) that point I became very successful. So you know, it took a true kind of facing that truth of myself and being honest, that was when the real kind of fame or whatever that kind of stuff happened for me.

Strong emotions are present in all people. Without feeling, we would not be human. It's unnatural for man to hide what he's feeling, though if taught to do so, he can learn. Love teaches a man to show what he is feeling. Love never presupposes that it can be discerned or felt without expression.

We must lay before him what is in us; not what ought to be in us.

I never utter my real feelings about anything. My lighter, superficial side will always be too quick for the deeper side of me, and that's why it always wins.

That’s what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is....Most people love you for who you pretend to be....To keep their love, you keep pretending - performing. You get to love your pretense...It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act...

We are what we are, neither a good or as bad as others paint us. And what we are doesn't change how truly we feel, only how free we are to follow those feelings.

There are so many ways to respond to music besides feeling like someone's communicating with you. It gives me a charge.

Whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.

If there's a message, it's that the unlovable and unattractive parts of ourselves should be embraced. The only real currency between people is what happens when they're not cool. And I hope people feel OK about not being cool.