Amanda Shires Quotes

Don't just rehash what came before. Find new things to do with it, in your unique voice.

I think I take little pieces of inspiration, then kind of do what's real to me and what's going on in my life or what I observe from other people's experiences and hope other people connect with it, too.

I have to believe everything I write is brand new and I'm writing in this way about these people in a completely new situation for the very first time.

Write what you know.

I want to be as honest as I can about the things I've been through - the sorrows and joys, victories and defeats - and to use those experiences as a well to draw from. Hopefully, the songs that result from that kind of writing will be songs that mean something to others.

Honestly, my goal is just to let people hear my story and just like, feed everybody that could relate to my story in any way.

A lot of people produce podcasts in which they simply ramble on for hours about themselves and their lives. There is something very poignant about the volume of human desire to be heard out there in the Wild West of podcasts.

I try to make the kinds of things I want to see out there in the world, and hope they end up resonating with other people too.

I'm still writing from personal experiences, which is what people connected with in the first place.

I think I started writing because no one had ever told me you can write about the things you know in a musical. They don't have to come from some far off place.

God bless my soul, woman, the more personal you are the better! This is a story of human beings - not dummies! Be personal - be prejudiced - be catty - be anything you please! Write the thing your own way. We can always prune out the bits that are libellous afterwards!

Cynthia's lyrics always expressed the feelings people felt but they couldn't express themselves.

Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.

I think I'm attracted to writers who tell us something about ourselves.

The challenge, really, on any new film is to try to avoid that and achieve a few moments that aren't cliche.

My favorite comedians are basically themselves onstage.

I certainly wear my heart on my sleeve, and I think that comes out in the characters that I play. There's a yearning, or something, that comes out of me that people relate to.

I prefer writing originals.

If you make something with love and, you know, passion and you tell a real story, I think it will always find an audience somehow, you know.

Singing is about telling a story. When you are onstage, you get to be your own self... When acting, you're someone else.

I'm not trying to stay in the same place and I'm not trying to compete with what's currently in fashion. That would be dishonest. But, at the same time, I'm different and the music reflects that to some degree.

When I write something that would have made me laugh as a 10-year-old, or would have scared me or would have excited me, I know I'm onto something.

We all tell our own stories the way we live our lives. My story is: Life is too short to not believe in fresh voices. I don't have Hollywood stars. I have great American artists.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

I'm a writer, first and foremost, and I sort of take my cues from the songwriters of the '70s, who are talking about what's really important to them.