Jonathan Carroll Quotes

I write songs from the heart, and I don't hold back.

You find yourself writing the truth, because it's like, 'Well, I ain't writing for anyone but myself anyway.'

In all the writers I admire, the common detonator is their courage to walk naked.

My concepts are never bright ideas; they're never notions I think will sell or be trendy or attract new fans. I don't think that way. All I can do is sing from my life.

I always write what feels really true and honest and me.

I could never sit down and say: I'm going to do an out-and-out comedy, just to prove to people I can. You've just got to do what you do. Just listen to your soul and do your art and do it for the right reasons, and then you can't fail.

I think it's better when you're natural, when you just do whatever you want, instead of doing classes where I see all these other people holding back because they've been trained with certain skills or techniques. I'm like, whatever.

This is what I believe about performing: There is no reason to be on stage - there is no reason to be there - if you're not going to put all your baggage somewhere else and just be honest. Whatever you're doing - screw it up, do great - just be there, and be honest. That's the most important thing.

I'd rather be a face for happiness and doing things that you have a passion for, rather than faking it and pretending like I'm this face of women's basketball, when I can't stand the sport at all.

I think what you're always looking for as artists is to be honest and to continue to be honestly driven by that which you are passionately engaged with. It should need not be forced.

No, I don't make my work in order to challenge or confuse other people's expectations - I only do what I find natural.

When you write a song, you don't ask if it's good or not, or if it's gonna sell. When you write a song, you ask whether you've reached deep inside your heart and whether it's honest.

If Rihanna stripped it all down morally rather than with her clothes, perhaps we'd get closer to Nina Simone. She's talented, but all we want is to sing the truth. If Britney Spears was to sing closer to her heart, she might have been the new Bobby Gentry or Dolly Parton.

Unlike a lot of writers, I don't have any craving to be understood.

I want to tell stories that I feel for, and I don't want to be a sell-out.

I find it hard to act other than the way I feel.

As an artist, you need to be true to yourself and free and not put yourself in a box that contradicts with what you feel is needed for a song.

If I live and breath something, I might as well show everybody what I live and breath.

We make music that we believe in. That's all it is.

You can play as good as you want, but you have to sing from a place of living.

I think, at the end of the day, it comes down to authenticity and creating what you love.

You can't write about a personal struggle if you're going to water it down to meet everyone's expectations about what's appropriate.

As long as what you do reaches out to people, I don't think there's any reason to stop yourself from doing anything.

My devils and angels, fears and hopes, insights and stupidities, loves and loathings, are what they are. I don't edit them out so much as try to make them interesting - whether I am talking to you, or writing a poem, or joking with my kids, or speaking on television.

No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work's sake, and what men call originality will come unsought.