Howard Jacobson Quotes

Nostalgia is a very human trait.

In some ways, I feel like I've always dabbled in nostalgia. It's just what I do; it comes naturally.

A lot of the albums that I've been really into are like, 'Oh man. That doesn't make him look like a perfect human. That actually shows his warts and his scars, and for some reason, I'm super drawn to him now because he shared that or she shared that with me.'

The more you allow yourself to be vulnerable, the more people will be able to relate and learn from you, because we're all human.

Nostalgia is very powerful.

That's the music that I play at home all the time, Joni Mitchell. Court and Spark I love because I'd always hoped that she'd work with a band. But the main thing with Joni is that she's able to look at something that's happened to her, draw back and crystallize the whole situation, then write about it. She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say? It's bloody eerie. I can relate so much to what she says. "Now old friends are acting strange/They shake their heads/They say I've changed."

You do try to write songs that you feel like people can relate to and you try to be as honest as you can so that people hear your records and they feel like, "Oh, my god. This is exactly how I feel. I went through this."

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.

I guess initially I was amazed that somebody would see something within my work that they could really relate to, but the more it's happened, the more people have come forward, I've really realized that we're all kind of going through the same thing at the same time.

I am just pitifully nostalgic. I can't help but roll my eyes at myself frequently. I mean, I still shoot black-and-white film. And I am constantly reminiscing about the 'good old days.' I'm 28 years old. There haven't even been that many 'good old days.' But still, I love to look back.

I'm human, just like anybody else.

The Squirrel Barkers always have a special place in my heart.

While I wouldn't wish being teased on anyone, I think it eventually leads to a kind of solidarity in adult life. The few people I know who weren't picked on in school are people I find I can't relate to on much more than a surface level. There's a sensitivity that comes with feeling like an outsider at some point in your life.

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

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.

Sometimes I think to get to the emotional level of a scene, you don't necessarily have to have experienced the exact thing that person has experienced, but whatever you have in your life that has gotten you to that place is usually enough.

To recognize yourself in a character onscreen, and to connect with them, you gotta recognize their flaws; they gotta feel like a real person.

Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.

The great thing about a song is that no one has to know your story. But if you tell it in a way that has clarity and means something to somebody else, then it can apply to their story.

I'll never sing something that I've never been through. So even if I didn't write it, I have to have at least experienced it.

I think what I'm trying to do is create moments of recognition. To try to detonate some kind of feeling or understanding of lived experience.

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

I don't have to wait to realize the good old days.

I think my job is hopefully to connect with people emotionally and to feel less alone or understand things in a certain way.