Ma Rainey Quotes

We all need poetry. The moments in our lives that are characterized by language that has to do with necessity or the market, or just, you know, things that take us away from the big questions that we have, those are the things that I think urge us to think about what a poem can offer.

I believe that a man is converted when first he hears the low, vast murmur of life, of human life, troubling his hitherto unconscious self.

Art is about profundity. It's about connecting to everything that it means to be alive, but you have to act.

Sometimes I journal three pages, sometimes I journal thirty pages, but I'm writing all the time, and whatever's happening is happening in real time for me.

I found that if I don't paint for around a week, I get practically suicidal. It took a long time to figure out why I had these mood swings, and I finally figured out it's because I haven't painted.

I tend to write songs critiquing myself. The best way for me to deal with stuff is to write a song about it... That's not to say all my songs are like that.

The reason I write is that I'm not in dialogue with my emotions; writing puts me in touch with myself.

Singing is just another outlet to express what I feel and to show everyone who I really am. I really don't talk about my personal life that much in interviews because that's my life, but with music, the way I write explains who I am.

One of the reasons I took up acting was to learn to be more human, to get in touch with human emotions.

I like to paint and spend a lot of time doing art. For me, it's about hearing yourself and putting it out there as art. It's like a therapy thing.

I express myself through song when I can't let people in on my thoughts otherwise. I need the creative process.

It's important to be yourself. What art does for everyone, helps you understand yourself and in a distilled way, whether it's a painting or a scene in acting or a joke. It distills something about everyday life that can be important to you.

'Crush' is probably the most honest project I've ever written. It's my voice.

I definitely think that using that artistic side of your brain, just having an outlet for emotion is very important, whether it be painting, dancing, acting, or singing.

I make music... and it helps me figure out life.

I write a song for myself because I need to come out with that particular song.

Instead of letting anxiety run you, try voicing it. Voice it in your comedy. Voice it in a script. Just voice it, and it'll help you release it.

Before stand-up, I'm not sure I even had a point of view.

It was through poetry I learned just to appreciate my own voice and to not think of my voice in terms of what it needs to be able to do, but what it can do.

My only way of processing anything for me is by writing.

When you're writing, I think a big part of writing comes out of an attempt to understand yourself. You're dealing with emotions and thoughts that are native to you. So that probably winds up in your characters.

Working on this album has been very emotional and super personal, and creating this character 'Cry Baby' helped me deal with my own insecurities.

One of my goals always, when I write music, is that it's not only me sharing my story with the fans: it's also a reminder to myself that, 'Hey, I said this so that I need to grow from it.'

I prayed hard and only gradually became aware that this fierce praying was a way of finding prologue and entrance into my own writing. This came as both astonishment and relief. When I thought God had abandoned me, I discovered that He had simply given me a different voice to praise the inexhaustible beauty of the made world.

Human life-everybody lives it, but only to a few is it known.