Brenda Ueland Quotes

To dance at all is to confront oneself. It is the art of honesty.

How truly does this journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts--I always write it according to the humour I am in, and if astranger was to think it worth reading, how capricious--insolent & whimsical I must appear!--one moment flighty and half mad,--the next sad and melancholy. No matter! Its truth and simplicity are its sole recommendations.

Monologue is the most honest way to represent human beings.

One of the commitments I made to myself when I decided to write a book was to be brutally honest, particularly about myself.

It is always easier to write from the heart and deal with things in the present.

I don't journal that much, honestly.

The only thing I've ever regretted is not writing more; not being more honest; not saying how it really is in Baghdad. It's hard to get there sometimes.

In the future, when something comes up, you tell exactly how it happened but write down for yourself the way you think it should have happened. Tell the truth and write the story. Then you won't get mixed up. It was the best advice Francie every got.

You know what, I just write what I feel.

I must be sincere towards what I am. ... Experimenting is the only thing that fills me with enthusiasm. ... It is the only sphere where I feel really honest and sincere.

I am carrying out my plan, so long formulated, of keeping a journal. What I most keenly wish is not to forget that I am writing for myself alone. Thus I shall always tell the truth, I hope, and thus I shall improve myself. These pages will reproach me for my changes of mind.

A journal should be neither an echo nor a pander.

Keeping a diary is like closing your bedroom door and refusing to come out until dinnertime: it is a declaration of self.

I'm interested in trying to explore what I think is the truth at a given time in my life, and part of the process of being honest is - in my mind - talking about the idea that you're watching a movie.

I was already in a groove and decided to initially write down everything, as I would in an actual diary, and then go back and take out what I was too shy to reveal. But I wound up leaving more in than I imagined, and that was because I wanted to be transparent and real.

Why wouldn't you write to escape yourself as much as you might write to express yourself? It's far more interesting to write about others.

When I go back and read my journals or fiction, I am always surprised. I may not remember having those thoughts, but they still exist and I know they are mine, and it's all part of making sense of who I am.

Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.

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.

Although rap is about boasting, it's also about honesty and expressing your emotions.

If the mind is calm, your spontaneity and honest thoughts appear. You become more spontaneous.

Just be honest with yourself. That opens the door.

They lyrical content has grown more introspective and less abstract. I don't know if that's good or bad... Sometimes it feels a little raw to be putting so much of myself out there.

I'm just writing about people. People are dark and complicated. I'm trying to tell the truth; that's all that I do.

Basically, I think that there are some characters that you can just allow the truth of your character as a human being in your real life to come through.