Arca Quotes

It's really such a personal journey, making a record, but even more so writing the songs.

'Sally' is just a song that I wrote talking to my alter ego. When I write, I don't really consciously say, 'This is what I've been going through in my life, and I'm gonna put this into words.' It's just a song that I kinda went in and did. Then, listening back to it, I realized, 'I'm talking to myself.'

Music is like a mirror in front of you. You're exposing everything, but surely that's better than suppressing. You have to dig deep and that can be hard for anybody, no matter what profession. I feel that I need to actually push myself to the limit to feel happy with the end result.

Having children made me go down a road of serious introspection and self-examination. I think it's informed and hopefully enhanced my creativity.

I can't remember why or how I started writing, but I think it was always a way of making sense of the world.

I have all these revelations as I'm writing. Each song is like a chapter of my diary.

I have always written only for myself - to clarify things, to clarify things with myself, to understand in an inner way what is actually happening.

I'd have to say that my favorite thing is writing a song that really says how I feel, what I believe - and it even explains the world to myself better than I knew it.

Any time I sit down and write music, the first part of that is always centering myself and thinking about who I currently am.

I didn't want to repeat my mistakes so I stopped, took some time out and started having therapy. My songs were bringing up feelings inside of me I didn't really understand, so I wanted to understand where they were coming from to help me be a better person and a better songwriter.

I used to be on the kitchen floor, crying, wasted and thinking of lyrics. That was the only way I could create - as a tortured artist. I've learned that you can be stable and taking care of yourself and still create beautiful work.

I look at my pictures, and I think, 'Well, how did I do that?'

I realized I was tired of singing about trees and flowers. I wanted to sing about real life. From then on, nobody could tell me anything was better than blues.

Yes, all my songs come from personal experience and relationships.

Whenever you're writing something that's reflective, you have to put yourself through some sort of ordeal just to understand the way you're feeling.

To work on great material, what you really end up working on is yourself, your own humanity.

I try to say something about the human condition whenever I can when I'm lucky.

Writing music on your own makes you think a lot about your life. Who are you? Would you change anything about yourself? This is where it comes from.

It's so funny because I listen to songs that I recorded that I didn't really know anything about at the time. Later on I'm starting to feel the songs. Sing them first, feel them later.

Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.

Filmmaking is incredible introspective. It forces you to sort of examine yourself in new ways.

My work is intensely personal.

Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.

At the typewriter you find out who you are.

Poetry is really about your mental state or intellectual, and where you are, and you're trying to evoke that, explain it to yourself, whatever, you're trying to dig into it, analyse yourself.