Judy Garland Quotes

I wasn't playing the music, the music was playing me... and once that went away, and I had the feeling I was playing music, I had to stop. The need to go onstage and get my brain flattened every night left me, and what I didn't wanna do is go onstage and perpetrate a fraud... You cannot fool an audience.

As much as I appreciate people putting me in the category of these very acrobatic belters, I feel like my strength is my... interpretation and my truthfulness with songs, and I don't want young people to think it's all about the high notes that they have to hit.

Everybody has their own level of doing their music. ... Mine just happened to resonate over the years, in one way and another, with a significant enough number of people so that I could do it professionally.

I like to use my voice as an instrument and just play along with the music. That's really how I tend to my voice. The content usually comes after or during that process of just trying to be an instrument.

People who love jazz musicians love us when we play what we want to play and we're starving. But as soon as you commercialize your sound like Wes Montgomery did, the jazz fans and the critics are down on you!

My life is not a political campaign. I just write about what is on my mind. I just play whatever I feel like playing. Whatever is in my soul at the time is what I want to do. I have, thank god, enough people who are still interested in what I am doing so that I can go out and keep doing it.

Actors are responsible to the people we play. I don't label or judge. I just play them as honestly and expressively and creatively as I can.

People used to say my music was too difficult or too obscure, and I never set out to be difficult or obscure. I just set out to write what I felt as honestly as I could, and I am delighted when other people feel a part of themselves in the music.

Speaking for myself, I try to go out there on the stage and make jokes with people, so I'm not really thinking about the impact anything I have. If it does resonate with people, that's really great.

Basically, I didn't want to sing anything for the sake of singing it. There were some songs where I really wailed, but because it's such an intimate space anything I chose to sing simply to make sound was going to come off an inauthentic. So I was really happy with where it landed - every song I sang, I loved for one reason or another. I didn't have to worry about selling a song.

A song is no song unless the circumstance is free and fine. If a singer sing from a sense of duty or from seeing no way to escape,I had rather have none. Those only can sleep who do not care to sleep; and those only write or speak best who do not too much respect the writing or the speaking.

Hold on to your dream. Don't let the people shake you from your dream. Don't let form become more important than the substance of your heart and mind. Don't let commerce determine what you do exclusively.

I feel like I've given up a lot of my fantasies. I just want to do things differently, and to a lot of people that's annoying. I like weird stuff. I always hoped if we had a big success it would be on our own terms.

I never get too many problems. You can never please everyone anyway, obviously. And some people take the easy route and just play the greatest hits, and their audience is happy to hear that as well, and that's fine, but it wouldn't please me. But it doesn't trouble me.

The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.

I don't ever try to anticipate my audience. I just write the songs I want to write, and hope people like 'em.

We have access to more resources in general, and they are not going to force a situation on us, whether its the producer, or the cover, or what songs we have to play. And it's a small enough company that it seems like the people there care about music and not just about business.

Our music is always a reflection of where we are in a society. That's what enables so many people to do what they do. So my advice is to work at your craft. Be the best you can be at your craft and do it sincerely. Even in the world we live in today, that will give you longevity. At the end of the day, I want the quality of my work to stand, not how much I did.

I liked his voice, rich and unself-conscious even when he forgot words and hummed to fill in the gap. What I didn't understand, I imagined, and thus it became a love song.

Once your writing is out there, you can't control how other people perceive it. All you can do is stand in your truth.

Everybody wants to write a hit song, but in Nashville people want to write the best song, which was my original intention as a singer/songwriter. ... I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.

There is an enormous pressure placed on gay novelists because they are the only spokespeople. The novelist's first obligation is to be true to his own vision, not to be some sort of common denominator or public relations man to all gay people.

I say what's in my head, and I'm on honest ground. That is worth so much, and I think it does make my job, as a writer, easier. It makes it possible for me to give people stuff that they like.

Stage charm guarantees in advance an actor's hold on the audience, it helps him to carry over to large numbers of people his creative purposes. It enhances his roles and his art. Yet it is of utmost importance that he use this precious gift with prudence, wisdom, and modesty. It is a great shame when he does not realize this and goes on to exploit, to play on his ability to charm.

Pearl Jam is a band I have a lot of respect for. Nirvana and Sonic Youth I feel the same way about. Mumford & Sons, My Morning Jacket, Wilco, Givers, and Foo Fighters are just some of my favorites. I respect bands that give me something of themselves that I can feel. ("Posing" bands turn me off generally speaking.) It all has to do with a feeling I have about them. That is what music is to me, a feeling. It's similar with people too.