Elizabeth Kostova Quotes

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.

As an artist, what you do represents who you are. Coming from a genuine, honest place - that's what I'm trying to do.

I have always tried to work according to what affects me, to a script that I like because it touches me in some way, without deliberately pursuing a commercial career or a particular image.

Mainly, I don't like it when music is made solely to impress people or in order to please business people; it doesn't sound good to me. If you're making music in order to become famous or loved by the masses... that's not what I'm about. When somebody's making music for the wrong reasons, I hear it right away.

You have to write the story that's at the front of your head. There is no point in trying to write for the market; it won't ring true.

My music is going to be true. I'm not out to sell records. I'm experiencing something, and it's what I feel.

Any writer overwhelmingly honest about pleasing himself is almost sure to please others.

I don't really write for an audience. I just write what the subject seems to me to require.

Of course, I write. I have stories to tell. But I don't want to do superficial stuff any more.

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

My whole goal is to be honest and sincere with the music I'm making.

No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him. ... The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart's blood.

I've learnt that I've had the best results from just trying to be me, trying to make a movie or TV show I want to see or write a script I want to read, and that's really all I can offer - being authentic.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

You'll go mad trying to figure out what people want. I don't bother. I write the stories I want to read.

There's the dual challenge of wanting to speak from an authentic place, and then being able to be honest about it. Even in the most mannered art, I think that's what people value, is a voice that comes from a real place.

Write what you think is good, is the whole of the law.

I would hate to make music and people love me for something that isn't me.

Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art.

I don't want to do stories that don't have a heart. I'm just not going to be satisfied with stories where I can't be passionate about the subject, where I can't make a difference.

Write a book you'd like to read. If you wouldn't read it, why would anybody else? Don't write for a perceived audience or market. It may well have vanished by the time your book's ready.

I don't think songs have to be like these super-#1-smash-hit-sounding songs, because I think it's more important that it's like, 'Hey! This is coming out of me. This is something I connect with. This is something that I like to sing.'

I wrote what I felt I had to write, and I'm willing to put my own sanity and my reputation behind it.

I decided at 15 that I didn't want to be one of those artists that gets up and sings love songs they don't mean. I decided that I was going to be me to the fullest extent, that my songs were going to reflect relationships I've had, things I've been through, and even the stuff I'm embarrassed about.

True feeling justifies whatever it may cost.