Mike Watt Quotes

I always try to improve, to find new ways of expressing myself, to keep looking for truth and originality.

My interest lies in my self-expression - what's inside of me - not what I'm in.

I am my own experiment. I am my own work of art.

Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.

You just get out there and be what you want to be. That's part of evolving and part of staying true to yourself - part of remaining alive in a real authentic, long-term sense creatively: not listening to what other people tell you to be.

Write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

You've got to be oblivious to other people, the push and pull of other people's opinions, the way other people measure success. It's then that you realize you are 100 percent who you are and you have to use that who-you-are 100 percent in order to create great things.

Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there's the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn't do it the way somebody told you to do it.

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.

I didn't start to work until I realized what it was I had to offer. I stopped imitating performers I admired and started just being myself.

It is when I am working that the real me comes out - that is when I am the most real and honest.

The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.

Living creatively is really important to maintain throughout your life. And living creatively doesn't mean only artistic creativity, although that's part of it. It means being yourself, not just complying with the wishes of other people.

The essential lesson I've learned in life is to just be yourself. Treasure the magnificent being that you are and recognize first and foremost you're not here as a human being only. You're a spiritual being having a human experience.

The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.

I'll never be August Wilson - but what I can be is more of myself.

To me, searching for perfection isn't anywhere near as interesting as trying to find your own voice.

I really don't have any secrets. I've never met a photographer whose work I respected that had a secret because the secret lies within each and every one of us.

It's strange: I've done so many things up until I did 'Obvious Child,' including writing children's books and making 'Marcel the Shell.' To me, the through-line is incredibly clear: it all comes from wanting to be connected to my own inner voice and not wanting to be on somebody else's agenda if that means that I can't be myself.

Training readers to expect a voice or subject matter from me would interfere with the reinvention I crave. At the same time, I feel almost too able to disappear at times.

My motto is never to try to imitate anybody: I have always looked inward and followed the inward voice.

I think being completely authentic about the time you live in is something that I would view as a career-long objective - to find out what is authentically this moment.

I don't feel I have to be Jackson Browne. Still, I like to say something.

Do stuff that is true to your own experiences.

The creative process has been a little bit of an experience, really - to try and make that work for me. The only way I know how to do that is just to remain genuine, humble, and true to everything I know already in my life.