Dave Matthews Quotes

I think 'Lost Boy' is just really relatable. You can be any age from any place in life, and you're bound to feel lonely at some point.

I can't believe when you write something from within, how many people relate to it.

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 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 always hope that people feel less alone when they see a movie that I make. That some part of the story played out on the big screen will resonate for individuals in the audience in a way that gives them comfort.

Though 'Fire and Rain' is very personal, for other people it resonates as a sort of commonly held experience... And that's what happens with me. I write things for personal reasons, and then in some cases it... can be a shared experience.

When you're watching somebody read your material and they smile and nod, you know you've found that place where your experience and their experience match, even though they aren't the same exact experience.

You're creating an intimacy that everybody feels, that it's their experience, not yours. I'll never introduce a song and say, now this song is about 'my' broken heart.

It all changed when I realized I'm not the only one on the planet who's scared. Everyone else is, too.

You never write down to the people - you write the best you can with the hope that someone else will feel the same way.

Art makes us feel less alone. It makes us think: somebody else has thought this, somebody else has had these feelings.

You write a story about loneliness, and you grab them all because everybody's an expert on that one.

There's no hierarchy in suffering. I think songs that are transcendent are the ones where everyone can feel something from it, you know?

We all have our things that we go through, and I wanted to be an artist that people could listen to and feel like they're not alone. I want to be empowering.

I feel like a lot of people can relate to my music.

I feel my situation is no different from anybody else's experiences.

Sometimes, I look outside, and I think that a lot of other people have seen this snow before. Just like I think that a lot of other people have read those books before. And listened to those songs. I wonder how they feel tonight.

I don't really care about how good a song is, I only want them to reflect what I felt when I was writing them

The artists that I love- whether painters or filmmakers- it's because something resonates in me because I've felt it.

When I'm writing with just an acoustic guitar, it can be for anyone.

I think there's just a lot of compassion in art. Again, when you're doing something that resonates with somebody else, you're going through an experience another person has had, whether it's been a painful experience or a joyous experience or a happy experience.

We're stuck in fear and in not wanting to cross that most important bridge of understanding that we're more alike or not. We all cry, we all laugh.

When you write a character and their dialogue, you can't help imagining how you would be acting if you were them. You kind of have to relate to all of them. It's the most personal thing I've ever done.

People ask me why I connected. It was presumptuous of me to say, but I'm Everyman. The difference is I put my thoughts into words.