Ryan Murphy Quotes

Half of me is this wacked-out comedienne who will do anything for a buck and a laugh. Well, at least for a laugh. But the other half is a lot darker, sadder and more pensive. It's the dark side that feeds the outrageousness and allows it to surface. I think that's true for anyone with comic flair.

I'm the most communal person that exists and a very solitary person. So I think writing is a form of getting to the community and being alone, and it's the best of both possible worlds.

A lot of my music is kind of contemplative, and somehow that always tends to tilt on the darker side. My inner conversation is apparently quite dark.

Look, then, into thine heart, and write!

I never feel the need to go out and make some grand statement that I'm dark and twisty and complicated, because I'm not that either. It's just not as simple as ponies and rainbows, though I do love ponies and rainbows.

I am ashamed every day, and more ashamed the next. But I will spend the rest of my life in this living space writing these notes, this journal, recording my acts and reflections, finding some honor, some worth at the bottom of things. I want ten thousand pages that will stop the world.

I write and sing about whatever I am able to understand and feel. I feel that it is healthier to look out at the world through a window than through a mirror. Otherwise, all you see is yourself and whatever is behind you.

I have a dark side; it's been pretty well documented. It wouldn't be bad to show that in some light in my work...It's something I no longer fear doing and am actually excited about doing.

I don't worry about being exposed. When I'm writing about myself I think about myself as a character. There is a ton of stuff going on in my life that I don't write about. If I need to write that stuff down, I write about myself in my diary.

I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart.

These handwritten words in the pages of my journal confirm that from an early age I have experienced each encounter in my life twice: once in the world, and once again on the page.

Much of the time I'm an introvert, by choice spending a lot of time on my own. I suppose liking my solitude is part of a writer's sensibility.

I write because I don't know how to ask my questions any other way.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

If you really want to know yourself, start by writing a book.

I was one of those dark, quiet kids that wrote poetry.

I feel like I really tapped into a pretty honest emotional place for myself as a lyricist. There's a broad spectrum of emotions.

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.

I don't have many friends. It's not because I'm a misanthrope. It's because I'm reserved. I'm self-contained. I get all my adventures in my head when I'm writing my books.

I use humour a lot. My foundation is tragic, but my appearance is humorous.

People think my work is therapeutic. I don't see it that way. It's not like I'm saving money from a weekly therapy visit by writing down my life.

I have written only what I have thought through, felt through and suffered through.

To be a writer is to connect and to play and to attempt to see clearly and understand. It astounds me regularly that feeling things deeply and writing them down is basically my job description.

I've always relied a lot on landscape in my books, the atmosphere of a particular place, as well as a fair amount of external action. While writing 'Chance,' it occurred to me that this is the most internal book I've ever written. So much of the action takes place in Chance's head.

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.