Sharon Van Etten Quotes

Almost everybody will listen to you when you tell your own story.

I put my emotions in my music and I want people to relate to that.

I'm attracted to music made by people who let themselves be emotional. They really care about what they do, and we believe in what they say.

Everything was a song. Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love... if you could feel it, I could feel it. And I could write a song about it.

My main goal as a songwriter is to make something that inspires people. To write things about my life that people can relate to. Whether it's a whole record or just one song for someone, I hope it can do that for them. Knowing that I have the ability to do that is inspiring to me.

The great thing about a song is that no one has to know your story. But if you tell it in a way that has clarity and means something to somebody else, then it can apply to their story.

You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.

I try to write life and not songs. People live life, and when you write life, you're going to mess around and touch somebody's heart, and they'll relate to you and what you're singing about.

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.

From the beginning, my songwriting was from writing in a journal; it was completely unfiltered. I don't know if I really meant to show everyone this side of me, but when I saw how people resonated to the things I was saying, some of the questions I was asking, I realized I was not alone.

I suppose my job is to describe spaces that are honest to me. And the goal, I suppose, is that the listener can hear themselves in some way in that song and also, in some way, hear me. And so if the listener is able to identify with my honesty then I'm being the most helpful I can possibly be.

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.

Sometimes if you can tell one personal story with a lot of sincerity, it can become a universal story.

I think people relate to the music because I have a sense of empathy, and I think I have a good understanding about relationships, and I talk about them in a real, honest way

You do try to write songs that you feel like people can relate to and you try to be as honest as you can so that people hear your records and they feel like, "Oh, my god. This is exactly how I feel. I went through this."

I show them the funny part, the silly part, the laughing part, the crazy part and then the really deep, deep part where I'm talking from my heart to these people. Because I've been through everything they've been through.

I love the fact that people can relate to what I'm saying, even if it's not for the same subject I was writing about. That is the power of real music and real expression.

I'm just basically spillin' out my emotions to the world. 'Cause rap is about emotion. And I want you to feel what I'm feelin', 'cause that's what it's all about.

Acting is all about truth and honesty, and the sensitivity that's capable of transporting you.

I think that talking about the personal specificity, personal details, is how you get the big, big audiences - by talking about your relationships or your personal tragedies. If you reach out with that energy, you'll touch people.

Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.

I sing songs that I have lived or I write them because I have lived them. I think the believability factor is key.

When you hear my music and you feel the emotion, it's real. When you see me in a film and you see a tear, it's real.

I didn't go to drama school or anything, and I learned on the job. And it's nice to have the chance to pretend to be other people. As a singer, though, I feel there's much more of me in that. I've written the songs, I'm singing them, I'm exposing my feelings.

What I would not like is to be ignored. I write from the heart. I don't write for me. I write for my readers.