Mat Kearney Quotes

Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.

The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader's heart.

That is the mystery about writing: it comes out of afflictions, out of the gouged times, when the heart is cut open.

Her cry was the saddest sound of orgasm that I had ever heard.

I can't even tell you what else I imagined. I can only humiliate myself to such a degree; at a certain point it becomes humorous, and this story is not meant to be humorous. This story is meant to winch your ribs open and tamper with your heart. This story is meant to make you realize that your chances of happiness in this world are terribly slim if you lack a fine imagination.

I feel often very close to the ecstasy and anguish which lie at the very heart of poetry - I am writing a lot.

Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Here is a book [The Lord of the Rings] which will break your heart."

First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can.

Remember, with writing, what you’re looking for is just one person to come up and tell you, 'I love you for what you do.'

You lose somebody you've possibly known for years and on top of that you lose a character that you love seeing on TV so I think that kind of makes it cool that we pay a price too. That it is painful on many levels and its amazing to be writing that moment and crossing that line right on the page and seeing the ugliness of it and having to deal with it. It's a very weird thing.

'I want to touch people but if I touch them in real life they'll slap me.' That's what writing isit's a gross person getting a hug.

Sometimes I write music, sometimes I don't. I think I'm just writing more what's close to my heart, and musical stuff is close to my heart, and it's fun to write, and when something's fun to write you don't think about what statement you're trying to make or what genre you're trying to hone in on.

Writing poetry is like always being in love. What masochism! What luxury!

I sense a scream passing through nature. I painted ... the clouds as actual blood. The colour shrieked.

Write," he said. "I'll write to you as soon as I get there," answered Julian. "No. Not to me. Write books. Not letters. Write them for me, for Penelope.

A woman who writes feels too much.

It was one thing to divide the major assets, but how was it possible to divide the heart?

The act of love strongly resembles torture or surgery.

I make no distinction between writing and storytelling; I've always wanted to tell stories.

Critics write out of intellectual exercise, not poets. Poets write straight from the heart.

I'm always so pleased when I can get a song or be given a song that really speaks to me and I can interpret, but if given the opportunity to really write from the heart and try and bring some personality to whatever this genre would be, it was a great opportunity for me.

I remember being absolutely rocked to my core by how profoundly I could love another human being.

I'm going to spend my life writing poems, turning them into music that will affect people and touch their hearts. I'm going to write the songs that people can't write for themselves.

The Catcher in the Rye had such a deep impact on me, because it felt like it was just Holden and me. I didn't feel like any other person had read that book. It felt like my secret. Writing that I identify with feels like it's just me and the writer. So I hope that whoever is reading what I do feels like that.

What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.