Michael Ignatieff Quotes

When you come from so many damaged places you don't ever want to spiral back there, so you gotta continue to check yourself.

I used to be on the kitchen floor, crying, wasted and thinking of lyrics. That was the only way I could create - as a tortured artist. I've learned that you can be stable and taking care of yourself and still create beautiful work.

I felt I came back rather quickly from being ill and didn't give myself the time to reflect.

It was only as I wrote about it that I began to find paths of access to feelings that were intolerable to me then.

Trauma and pain and suffering can be the very thing that dislodges a person from themselves both in awful ways and larger ways that force one to reckon with one's own life.

I know some people are like, 'I'm depressed, and I'm a struggling artist,' and that really works for some people, but that doesn't work for me. I have to be really happy, even when I'm writing my depressing songs; I have to come through that stage before I can write.

When I'm depressed is when I'm not interested in writing anything, whereas some people, I think, are spurred to creativity through their personal experiences and through depression. And for me, it's a very low place, and it's not fruitful.

My demons, inner strengths and physical battles have guided me through life.

I have spent much of my adult life flinching with pain as I tried to pull out the threads that bound the shadows of my past to me.

One must not let oneself be overwhelmed by sadness.

Your face tells a story and it shouldn't be a story about your drive to the doctor's office.

I've written several deeply personal songs this year, which I really love. Some of them came out of intense sadness. This has been an extremely difficult year for me.

Issues deals with the issues I had, the fears I had and it isn't a 'nice' album but fears and depressions are not particularly nice.

Everybody feels good in their skin for about a minute a day, and the rest of the day, you're just trying to navigate your way through the sea of terror.

You feel different every day of your life. You just have to create your own space to survive, personally and professionally.

I'm a creative person who had a lot of dark time in my life. I can still get to it: I can still go to a relationship or a time when things weren't great. But it's getting further and further from me.

The thoughts of my emotionally so disturbed days must be found again, shifted and developed further. Here and there something of the loose remarks I make must be used, but only when it finds my attention again.

Women have to air it out, hold on to it, work on it.

It's important to talk about loving yourself and looking at your tragedies and the stuff that makes you grow.

The more settled I've become, the more problematic my characters have become. There was a period when I wrote sensitive and gentle songs and these came at a time when life was at its most destructive. I think you write about what you need, on some level.

The message I want to give my fans is, always have a way to pull yourself out of the dark place. Don't sit and cry about it. Have your moment, and then get over it.

I think there comes a time in every persons life where they just need to go to the darkest, most dismal place.

I think no matter how successful our lives may seem to the outside world, we all have our personal struggles.

I believe my own demons would have caught up with me regardless of my race and regardless of whether I worked at 'The Times.'

When they are assailed by despair, young people should let universal concerns into their lives.