Hilton Als Quotes

'Before I Ever Met You' was the first one to come out and that just dives into the grit, and it's pretty graphic about a relationship. For my first song, it was very special the way it happened, because I didn't really hold anything back, and people responded to it.

In love as in art, good technique helps.

I do write songs about love but I don't really know love that well.

I take making music seriously, but you have to have a sense of humor about yourself. I invite people into my life. That's how I do it.

I go through the arc of a relationship with every single painting that I do.

Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.

I go to the studio every day, but I don't paint every day. I love playing with my architectural models. I love making plans. I could spend my life arranging things.

'Santa Sangre' is the picture I love the best, myself, because 'El Topo' and 'The Holy Mountain' I made with my head, and 'Santa Sangre' I made with my feelings, with my heart. It's an emotional picture. And it's more real for me, that picture.

I love the art form of songwriting. I get to carry a lot of vibes to a lot of people. My songs are all about the human condition, and people will be able to find themselves in my songs.

I can't write songs unless I am in love.

I love writing songs and being a musician, but you can't really buy the feeling of connecting with people.

There's always going to be life experiences that find their way into my songs.

In one sense, every character you create will be yourself. You've never murdered, but your murderer's rage will be drawn from memories of your own extreme anger. Your love scenes will contain hints of your own past kisses and sweet moments.

Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms of his mistress, a bartender, his wife, a good psychiatrist - whatever.

I love acting it's apart of me and I try to put a little bit of myself in each of my roles.

One of the things I love about directing is I love actors, because no matter how complex they are, once you get down to working and talking to them and the toughest guy will want you to open them up and he wants to show you stuff he was afraid to show anybody before.

I love films, I love the way they make me feel.

I think we have a creative impulse where suffering can magnify our work, but so can joy. You can be in love and write the greatest love song ever. Sometimes I think too much suffering makes it difficult to do one's work.

I suppose I'm always trying to break down the wall between my characters and myself. I'm trying to make the film as expressive and personal as I can, even if I can't explain, for example, how important it is for me to be Jewish.

I love being a very personal singer-songwriter, but I also like being a scientist or explorer.

That's something that I think the best artists retain - the ability to invite you into their small, intimate inner space, and let that be what radiates.

I think great art comes from being open and creative with somebody, and of course, if feelings start getting involved in that, it can either make things fantastic or really messy.

That's what I love about acting and love and drama and art: that humanness we all share.

Certainly in the case of having to answer questions about where a song comes from, it's a hell of a lot easier when you say, 'I've removed myself from it.' But they start from quite a personal place. They always do.

All good works of art must ask this question: 'You want to breathe free, yes, but do you know how to kiss?'