Estelle Quotes

You can't write about stuff you don't know about. You have to live it. You have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Live life to be a good songwriter.

The only real inspiration or muse that I have is just the life that I live.

I think you have to experience life and then pull certain experiences into your act and your character's life, whoever you play, so you're full.

There's a lot of reflection that goes on whenever I write a song - it's been a wild whirlwind last couple of years and there's a lot to talk about, and hopefully that's evident in the music.

I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life.

For a writer, they say write what you know. As a performer, you find it in yourself, in your heart. You relate to the character. You try to live it, try to have it be real for you.

For me, writing has always come out of living a fairly to-the-bone kind of life, just really being present to a lot of life. The writing has been really a byproduct of that.

I sing songs that I have lived or I write them because I have lived them. I think the believability factor is key.

I think I've lived a pretty hard life. What I mean by hard is that... I've been kind of reckless with things. I'm a passionate person. I'm a super passionate person. I think there's definitely been sorrow in my life, good and bad. I think it comes through. I hope it comes through in my writing because to me that's what artistry is.

I have a lot of real life experience that I can draw on. And I think that shows in the characters that I play because I'm always trying to find somebody - or find characters to play that I can identify with on a personal level or relate to. And I think it makes for a little bit more of an honest portrayal.

My life. The life I'm living that's where all my inspiration comes from. Real life experiences.

You've got to live life to write a book about it.

Lyrics mean a lot to me, and I won't record a song unless I can feel it. That's something I learned from Carter Stanley. Even when he wasn't perfect technically, he got inside a song and sold it emotionally.

As filmmakers and as actors, you have to find truth.

I needed time to stand back and go through a lot more experience in life. Then I have something to write about, joke or to animate.

'Birdman' came from a very beautiful side of me, from a part of honesty and surrender about things.

You gotta live life before you can talk about it. Sometimes when things don't work out in life, they work out on stage.

It was the moment I learned acting is not acting out. After that light went on, I spent the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make other people realize it.

Songwriters tell the truth.

And if you don't live, you have nothing to write about.

Whatever I'm writing comes organically out of my life.

I think when you're writing songs, it's impossible to not draw on personal experiences, whether it be traveling or girls or anything. Just emotions.

My main goal as a songwriter is to make something that inspires people. To write things about my life that people can relate to. Whether it's a whole record or just one song for someone, I hope it can do that for them. Knowing that I have the ability to do that is inspiring to me.

The key to songwriting is just to be able to observe, and put yourself in situations to be around people, and let those ideas come to you.

My approach as an actor has always been the same, in that the greatest gift that you're ever going to have is your imagination because you're not going to have all life experiences. So you draw on things that are sort of close to it but you spend your time expanding on it or drawing something specific on whatever your situation is.