Brittany Howard Quotes

My earliest poems were a way of talking to somebody. I suppose to myself.

Isolation is a big part of songwriting.

When I got into music, that was another way to be by myself.

I used to be locked up in my bedroom for hours, just listening to music, making some of my own, doodling and writing poetry.

That's what my music is good for - clearing out the house and being alone.

Part of me still feels like I've never had the opportunity to properly express all my earliest influences, so for now, I find isolation to be my biggest influence.

I can gabble on now, but I couldn't when I was a kid, so I spent a lot of time in my own head on the moors by myself. It felt like writing was the right way to express myself.

Writing is an antidote for loneliness.

Anyone who writes knows that ultimately the majority of your time is spent alone in a room with a piano or a guitar, no matter what the project is.

Once I was condemned to three months' absolute silence. As I could not speak, I wrote a book.

I was always the observer, trying to understand what was going on. I was always the new kid. Writing became my safe place.

My music is very personal. I've created it in solitude. I face a white wall and beller. I like that sound - the expression of loneliness. That's what it's all about.

I used to spend a lot of time alone as a kid, creating characters and doing voices in my room, and I thought to myself, I'm either going to go absolutely nuts, or I'm going to find something to put that energy into.

Directing is all tied up with childhood loneliness. It's such an odd thing to end up doing.

I just wanna hear my own voice.

I would take my guitar to college and sit for hours in the hills humming to myself.

I spent most of my time talking to God more than to people.

To be a musician, especially a singer-songwriter - well, you don't do that if you have a thriving social life. You do it because there's an element of alienation in your life.

Once outside the magic circle the writers became their lonely selves, pondering on poems, observing their fellow men ruthlessly, putting people they knew into novels; no wonder they were without friends.

Writing is an escape from a world that crowds me. I like being alone in a room. It's almost a form of meditation- an investigation of my own life.

writing is the most personal form of prayer.

Sometimes I was in a mood to write a song as if I was writing in my journal and reveal certain parts of me that I was ready to reveal.

Sometimes I go for days without speaking to a soul. I think, “I should make that call", but I put it off. Because there’s something pleasurable about not talking. But then I love talking, so it’s not that. But sometimes it can be nice. It’s not like I sit here philosophizing, because I’ve no talent for that. It’s just this thing about silence that’s so wonderful.

I love to write when I feel like everybody else is asleep and when I feel like the world is kind of empty in some ways. I find, oddly enough, that I write about loneliness and isolation a lot.

Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world. Take that aching and use it to propel you deeper into your need for expression - to speak, to say who you are.