Kenya Barris Quotes

As wild and raunchy as Richard Pryor was, people related to his honesty because they found something in their life that they understood.

Even if you can't relate to what I'm singing, I hope you can believe in it and see it as something that it is real.

I feel like the more real we are, the more people will respect that.

With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.

This is my truth, tell me yours.

When you are honest and open with young people, they let you in.

Young people want you to be real with them.

To be honest with my music... for me to expect anyone to connect it has to come from a place of honesty.

There's this stress that is relieved when you realize somebody understands, and that's only going to happen if you feel the person who's writing the book or the people in the TV show aren't holding back.

I realized that there's this fine line between being personal and being general and being alienating.

The most powerful, most insightful, and most important part of my music is honesty and inclusiveness with my fans - giving them as deep a story as I can give them.

I'm very self-deprecating, so I'm not afraid to make jokes at my own expense, and I've just found that makes people a little more comfortable and can open the door for people to feel a little bit more understanding and accepting of where you're coming from.

I think everyone who shares a piece of themselves and is open and honest - I think that helps us all.

I'm not a gifted storyteller, so I write what I know and hope that honesty resonates with other people's experiences.

I show them the funny part, the silly part, the laughing part, the crazy part and then the really deep, deep part where I'm talking from my heart to these people. Because I've been through everything they've been through.

Fiction, at its best, is a radical act of intimacy. It seeks to join, to merge, to know deeply; and, as with intimacy, there is a way in which it cannot be faked.

I certainly wear my heart on my sleeve, and I think that comes out in the characters that I play. There's a yearning, or something, that comes out of me that people relate to.

To me, having the courage to tell your own story goes hand in hand with having the curiosity and humility to listen to others' stories.

I feel that if I'm going through something, I'm sure someone else is, too. I try to be as honest with myself and others as I can be.

I just want people to hear me and my story.

What is a friend? I will tell you... it is someone with whom you dare to be yourself.

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

People see truth in my films. That's what they react to, and that's what they relate to.

You can hate me. You can go out there and say anything you want about me, But you will love me later because I told you the truth.

I'm all about showing people that I'm a little messed up, I have a lot of the same problems you have. By exposing myself and putting myself out there, people can relate to me and my act won't grow stale. I mean, nobody wants to hear a comedian say, 'Life is great.'