Wendy Cope Quotes

The only thing you can really say in a poem is what you really, really deeply believe.

A poet's first contract is with truth.

In fiction I think we should have no agenda but to tell the truth.

Tell the truth about who you are, what you feel, what you want, what you're up to. Tell the truth about that first to yourself and then to anybody else that'll listen.

Contrary to all those times you've heard a writer confess at a reading that he writes fiction because he is a pathological liar, fiction writing is all about telling the truth.

I think that people respond to honesty in music, so I only choose songs that are the truth for me.

What's the point of a song if you can't be honest?

I try not to observe myself in the process of composing a poem because I don't want to come up with a formula, which I would then be unscrupulous in using.

I generally only paint people I know, I'm not a flatterer really.

I just don't think that I could be the kind of actor I want to be and not be honest with myself. Honesty is very important to me as an actor and as a person. I didn't even think about it.

The first function of poetry is to tell the truth, to learn how to do that, to find out what you really feel and what you really think.

Songwriters tell the truth.

In the process of telling the truth about what you feel or what you see, each of us has to get in touch with himself or herself in a really deep, serious way.

The first question at that time in poetry was simply the question of honesty, of sincerity.

I've always been inspired by Genet, Henry Miller and Hubert Selby, Jr., who taught me that you've got to tell a bigger truth in whatever you're doing, but the truth is not popular.

I've been & am absurdly over-estimated. There are no supermen & I'm quite ordinary, & will say so whatever the artistic results. In that point I'm one of the few people who tell the truth about myself.

I think my job is to try and be as honest as I can with what is in my mind and how I feel - I think that's what you're supposed to do, if you're a good writer. So I try to do that. I know I do that. I do do that.

If you have value as an artist it's probably going to be in your capacity to let things inside you get past things that are placed there to keep you from telling the truth. The more you see things as clearly and coldly as you can, the more value you're going to have.

Learn your instrument. Be honest. Don't do anything phony. There is so much crap floating around. There is plenty of room for a bit of honest writing.

The kind of fiction I'm trying to write is about telling the truth.

Every single lyric I've ever written I meant.

Art is about expressing the true nature of the human spirit in whatever way one wishes to express it. If it is honest, it is beautiful. If it is not honest, it is obvious.

It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.

The responsibility of an artist is to be honest with themselves.

I feel the weight of just telling the truth. There really is no weight to telling the truth. It's a little scary sometimes, but if you tell the truth, you don't have to be looking over your shoulder.