Natasha Trethewey Quotes

I am a genius who has written poems that will survive with the best of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Keats.

I shall try to write a poem that is about the moment but doesn't betray things that are true to me as a poet.

More than anything, I think the best thing you can do as an artist is just stay as true to yourself as possible and hope that your fan base will appreciate that.

O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies, O skilled to sing of Time or Eternity, God-gifted organ-voice of England, Milton, a name to resound for ages.

I just go in the studio and do what I love to do. People will be people, they'll come and go, they'll like you then not like you, I just try to stay true to myself first and that's what most important because that way when you are successful you can stand up and say look, I did it my way and I did it the way that I wanted to do it.

It is naive to think that self-assertiveness is easy. To live self-assertively--which means to live authentically--is an act of high courage. That is why so many people spend the better part of their lives in hiding--from others and also from themselves.

I don't think I've ever made a conscious effort to alter the sound. I don't see the point. I have to remain true to how I sing. I'm perfectly happy with what I am. Whatever that is.

Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.

Onstage, it's all just a heightened and more elaborate version of me. When you're standing onstage, your adrenaline is going, your enthusiasm is at full tilt, and the excitement helps elevate you're attitude. I've always wanted to be as close to myself offstage, being funny with my buddies, and that's what I've worked hard on - being authentic to who I really am.

Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be.

It's not surprising that you wouldn't see that side of me on television, but in real life I find the world to be quite a funny place.

I can't be a part of the problem. I hate the idea of a label just as much as anyone else but I'm with who I'm with, I love who I love and I'm if not a better actress than I was yesterday and my personal life should have no effect on that. I think that the injustice of people staying in the closet is more than I can bear with a clear conscience and I couldn't sleep at night if I was a part of that problem, if I was part of the lies.

If I thought that any poem of mine could have been written by anyone else, either a contemporary or a forerunner, I should suppress it with a blush; and I should do the same if I ever found I were imitating myself. Every poem should be new, unexpected, inimitable, and incapable of being parodied.

I think you either live a real life or you live a weird celebrity pseudolife.

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.

Often times, being in a popular thing means that you have to compromise your own acting.

I do not understand why any poet or writer would run for office; that's a different sense of who you are. I'm just a poet. I am as truthful as I can be. That makes me an artist. I heed the people; I do not lead the people.

I only want to make movies I want to see. That may mean my career is somewhat limited, but that is my version of integrity. No matter how it performs or how it's received, I can be okay with it.

You have no control over other people's taste, so focus on staying true to your own.

If I just know in my gut that a film is going to work, I'll fight to the death over it, and I convince myself. When a movie is purely a money job, the film doesn't have the same sort of intensity, and the audience almost senses it, at least that's the way I perceive it. So, yeah, the idea is to do something that you truly, truly believe in.

You really write the books you want to write. You can't take into consideration anything that anybody has said about you in the past, or what they'll say about you in the future.

The hardest thing in making a movie is to keep in the front of your consciousness your original response to the material. Because that's going to be the thing that will make the movie. And the loss of that will break the movie.

No matter what, I need to maintain my sense of self and always be true to who I am.

You just have to do the thing that you feel is true to your vision, and then the audience will make the decision. But as soon as you feel like you're creating a product to just cater to what you think they want, it never works. It always feels phony. And the audience can tell immediately.