Iris Dement Quotes

A lot of my songs are about things that concern me personally, not a heightened version of myself or any of the characters that I play.

If you write something that's personal, there's going to be elements of yourself in it.

All my songs come from me because I only seem able to write about myself and my experiences.

I write about different things. Anything that has affected me. Anything that I have liked. Anything that I feel strongly about. Any experience.

Anyone who has problems, or worries, anyone who laughs and cries, anyone who feels can write. It's only talking on paper... talking about the things that matter to us.

I think anything that anyone writes that's any good is going to have a lot of autobiography.

Recording is more autobiographical than acting. It's me - either how I'm feeling then or once felt at some point in my life. It's all me.

If I'm writing strictly for others, how does that show what I'm experiencing or thinking? I just got to a point where I realized I could be as personal as I wanted to be and people could relate to those situations if they so choose.

It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.

I always like to write where I'm at in real life into whatever I'm working on.

The writing process really became natural when it was real and from my heart, and I was exposed.

A writer is rarely so well inspired as when he talks about himself.

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment. In fact, maybe that's really it. In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing.

As a writer, you rely on whatever makes you up as a person, whether those things are twisted and nasty or otherwise.

I write from my life, my experience. I'm selfish that way.

Definitely, there is a sense in my writing that people now know me in a personal way. And to an extent, that's true because I write about very personal things, and I use the personal often to contextualize some of these sociopolitical issues that we're dealing with. And to an extent, they're right. They know something about me.

I never reflect or convey that which I have not experienced myself.

I can only speak for myself and my own music, because that is what I am most familiar with, and I write about things that I am living or experiencing.

The reason I write is that I'm not in dialogue with my emotions; writing puts me in touch with myself.

I write about what I'm going through.

I really don't have any secrets. I've never met a photographer whose work I respected that had a secret because the secret lies within each and every one of us.

The way I personally work is I like to write what I know, what I feel, and also where I am.

When you write, no matter what, it ends up personal.

I've always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.

Anything I write is going to be autobiographical and true to some degree.