Mark Twain Quotes

I think by definition you need to have lived a little bit to write anything that's humanly true.

At this rate, I'd be lucky if I wrote a page a day. Then I knew what the problem was. I needed experience. How could I write about life when I'd never had a love affair or a baby or even seen anybody die? A girl I knew had just won a prize for a short story about her adventures among the pygmies in Africa. How could I compete with that sort of thing?

Writing does not exclude the full life; it demands it.

I think I've always been aware of it with my music. I think growing up basically and having a lot to deal with and just slowing down and having something to say and something to retract from, I think I just knew that what I was doing was extremely honest.

I have this theory that anything that happens to you that leaves you alive and intact can be used somewhere in your writing.

My writing is authentic, and whatever happens in my life is what I write about.

You can't write about stuff you don't know about. You have to live it. You have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Live life to be a good songwriter.

Well, I always say that the two things I was most disastrous at in my life, being a teenager and being a wife, were the two things I really wound up cashing in on when I was writing fluffy magazine pieces.

They say, 'Write what you know.' What I know isn't cheerleader; it has a little bit of teeth to it.

Whatever I'm writing comes organically out of my life.

My advice would be not to write until after 35. You need some experience, and for life to knock you about a bit. Growing up is so hard you probably won't have much emotion to spare anyway.

I think I've lived a pretty hard life. What I mean by hard is that... I've been kind of reckless with things. I'm a passionate person. I'm a super passionate person. I think there's definitely been sorrow in my life, good and bad. I think it comes through. I hope it comes through in my writing because to me that's what artistry is.

I am so enriched because so much has happened in my life. The way I can express myself is because of the life I have led. It's only when you experience life can you emote it.

As I experience life and go through things, that's what I write about.

People think you have to go through a lot of changes to become a soul singer, You just have to go through life.

I'll often use my real stuff in my writing because it comes across as more authentic.

When you start writing about the stuff that is the central experience of your own life, you can talk about whatever you want, in whatever way you want.

When I'm writing, it's because I'm trying to figure something out for myself. If I don't believe in what I've written, then how can I expect anyone else to believe in that, either?

I love my story. I wouldn't change it. It gives it character. It's never been on a silver spoon.

I think all my life's story is condensed in my face. It is neither innocent nor coy. It speaks volumes.

I think you have to experience life and then pull certain experiences into your act and your character's life, whoever you play, so you're full.

Every day I learn something new, and, you know, you go through life's experiences, and if you can bring every experience at some point somewhere in every drama or every story that you have to portray, you will come across an emotion or a feeling you have had some point in your life.

I write because I have authority from life to do so.

You live through stuff, and it affects the way you feel about the world, and you write about it.

In the writing, I'm just trying to go deeper, emotionally, and learn more about myself and reveal more and find a way to connect with people in new ways.