Brenda Ueland Quotes

I try not to take on the weight or the burden of it. Once it's on the paper, I try to leave it, because I want to surrender to what I'm supposed to write about.

It's hard for me to feel bad when I'm writing well.

I really like writing poetry and lyrics because it's one thing where I give up control. I don't feel like I need to be in control of it. I just sort of let it happen, and then I know when it's done. I know when it's finished.

For me as an actor, I find it's most creative when I'm bringing myself into the role rather than putting the role on. I feel like it's more of a cathartic experience.

Art is like a fart for the soul. Better out than in.

I do not know if you bridle your pen, but when my pencil moves, it is necesary to let it go, or - crash!... nothing more.

If I can get it down on paper without puking all over the word processor, then as far as I'm concerned, it's fit to see the light of day.

Sometimes I write music, sometimes I don't. I think I'm just writing more what's close to my heart, and musical stuff is close to my heart, and it's fun to write, and when something's fun to write you don't think about what statement you're trying to make or what genre you're trying to hone in on.

Writing becomes a really good creative outlet when you're sitting there and feeling creatively frustrated or stilted, but also you then get to write parts for yourself.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

If you're actually allowing your creative part to control your writing rather than a more commercial instinct or motive, then you'll find that all sorts of interesting things will bubble up to the surface.

I work in a business environment forty hours a week, and writing is what I do to unwind. It allows me to transport myself to a happy place where I can indulge my hopes, beliefs, aspirations and fantasies. It also allows me to live and breathe a topic for eighteen months while I'm researching and writing.

When I got to write for the 'Battlefield' record, it was almost therapeutic. I had gone through a few things in the two years prior and it was really nice to take those thoughts and emotions and get them out. I definitely want to hone that side of my artistry.

When I sit down to write, I just let the goose out of the bottle.

To me, writing and composing are much more like painting, about colors and brushes; I don't use a computer when I write, and I don't use a piano. I'm at a desk writing, and it's very broad strokes and notes as colors on a palette.

All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts.

I had a lot of songs and words and scenes stuck inside of me. So Jacknife encouraged me to bring them all out. So, in essence, 'You and Others' is my diary.

It is very true to say that work done by writers is quite often an attempt to give solid expression to that which is bothering them... They feel they have got it right if they express the stress.

When I'm writing, I look like a fool because the parts are moving through me and I'm crying and laughing and making faces.

I have reached the point where I know that as long as I sit down to write, the ideas will come. What they will be, I don't know.

Every script I've written and every series I've produced have expressed the things I most deeply believe.

I write based on powerful inner impulses, and those seem to shift over time.

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

Making art has never been a mystery to me. It's never been something that's very difficult.

When I go into the studio, I completely detach. I let my emotions come out.