Idina Menzel Quotes

I've always seen it as the role of an artist to drag his inside out, give the audience all you've got. Writers, actors, singers, all good artists do the same. It isn't supposed to be easy.

In terms of fitting in, you know, I don't have a lot of armor up. I'm a raw nerve and it's really uncomfortable for a lot of people.

It's really not easy to be an artist. It's not easy to put yourself out there and be honest. I'm making things that are really happening to me, and it's not easy to share that with the world.

There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any human being, sometimes I can't help but wonder - 'What are the people I know going to think about this?' So I have to remind myself that all is permissible. Art has to be a free space. Language has to be a free space.

I try to open up my heart as much as I can and keep a real keen eye out that I don't get sentimental. I think we're all afraid to reveal our hearts. It's not at all in fashion.

An awful lot of actors shy away from the uglier aspects of the human condition. They want to be liked, which is a cop-out. You've got to go for it.

Some people are attracted to vulnerability. From my very first album, I've been vulnerable. I've always given parts of me, parts of my life - good, bad, ugly. I've never put up this image as a super-thug. Also, some people just like the music.

I think my favorite artists are honest artists, and as a songwriter, that's what you have to do. You have to be willing to put yourself out there in a really vulnerable way.

For me, there's no point in being an artist and putting yourself out there if you're not going to really put yourself out there.

I've got a long list of things I consider to be selling out. But amongst that list, one of them is when you make art without putting your guard down.

I have to strip away all the layers when I'm writing the song. I have to cut through all these layers of years of putting up walls and putting protective layers around myself.

I feel like I try to write from an honest of a place as I can - without scaring people off too much, I guess.

I had to be honest in my songwriting for it to be where it is, and it's always scary wondering if anyone will connect with that.

You're reluctant to give too much away when you're going to put it out there for other people. It's harder writing your truest fears and loves and guilts, because you're not sure when you're writing the right story.

Who said that artists should sell their soul, expose everything about themselves?

I think that people respond to honesty in music, so I only choose songs that are the truth for me.

Everything I've written is personal - it's the only way I know how to write.

I'm more comfortable revealing myself than hiding behind metaphors. I respond to artists who reveal something of themselves.

There's a lot of risk in putting what you suspect you really are into your music.

All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts.

I decided at 15 that I didn't want to be one of those artists that gets up and sings love songs they don't mean. I decided that I was going to be me to the fullest extent, that my songs were going to reflect relationships I've had, things I've been through, and even the stuff I'm embarrassed about.

When I write, what I long for is not more realism or fiction but more courage. That's what I always find myself short on and what I have to struggle to achieve in order that the work might live.

As far as the creative process goes, I always make sure that anything that gets discussed or talked about in the record is true to form. I make it a point not to sing anything that I haven't felt or gone through.

I think, for me as an artist, there are no boundaries. As long as I'm creating in a way that isn't trying to re-traumatize any wounds that I do have.

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.