Withered Hand Quotes

I've grown from being around other singers. I've learned not to be afraid. A part of that is from writing my own songs and discovering how to tell my own story properly.

You can be whoever you want to be when you are writing songs.

There's a lot of reflection that goes on whenever I write a song - it's been a wild whirlwind last couple of years and there's a lot to talk about, and hopefully that's evident in the music.

It took awhile for me to get used to speaking candidly about my own life. I got into it, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience.

I love Lady Gaga. She's not afraid to take risks and be herself.

There are people we look up to, like Lady Gaga and what she's built. She's not afraid to own who she is.

The songs come from a vulnerable place, but expressing that part of yourself can also make you feel fearless.

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.

Find your voice and inspire others to find theirs.

I'm by no means a pianist. I think that's safe to say, but the piano, for me, I would say it's the enabler. It gave me what I needed and gives me what I need in order to write a song. And I think playing or improvising on the piano is where I feel most liberated and sort of less conscious of all my insecurities or inadequacies.

The more I push myself to really live and really experience things and step outside of my comfort zone, the more the songs are allowed to flow.

My job is to bring out in people what they wouldn't dare do themselves.

In order for me to write, I have to experience life. I write the songs based on real life, and I perform them from a very real place.

I just want to inspire my fans to be whoever they want to be, because that's what I've always done.

I always was really confident about myself, about my voice, myself as a person, my body, all of those things, but as a songwriter - I just didn't identify as a songwriter at all.

Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness; nothing but faith, faith and freedom.

When I was younger, I wouldn't speak up as much, but now that I'm a mom, things have changed.

Even within the last three or four years, I have a greater ability to communicate, I think. I have more courage to show the stuff... And it does take courage.

I'm inspired by people who are unapologetically themselves, from Bill Cosby to Fahim Anwar. Just funny people.

You can't do your work worrying about what people will think of it - you kind of just have to do your work.

I wrote my first song when I was 54 years old.

People ask what my influences are, and for me, it's not always obvious. One of my biggest inspirations was Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders. That's based on how she just does whatever she wants to do, and I love her attitude about everything. It bleeds over into my way of thinking and comedy.

You have to write about what scares you.

Living courageously in your uniqueness is really important: just being completely yourself. I know that sounds really cliche, but just do what you want to do.

As I grew in confidence, I was able to come out and say that I'm a musician.