creative sincerity Quotes

I don't feel comfortable making empty music.

I feel like trying to write a song in order to be a big hit is just not something I'm interested in because it's not going to come from an authentic place of expression.

I never wanted to write the sort of song that said, 'Look at how abnormal and crazy and out there I am, man!'

A great emotion is too selfish ; it takes into itself all the blood of the spirit, and the congestion leaves the hands too cold to write. Three sorts of emotion produce great poetry - strong but quick emotions, seized upon for art as soon as they have passed, but not before they have passed ; strong and deep emotions in their remembrance along time after ; and false emotions, that is to say, emotions felt in the intellect. Not insincerity, but a translated sincerity, is the basis of all art.

Writing should ... be as spontaneous and urgent as a letter to a lover, or a message to a friend who has just lost a parent ... and writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger

I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.

It's always a nice feeling, having people think that you feel things much deeper than you're allowed to say, but this isn't true. If you want to find out what a writer or a cartoonist really feels, look at his work. That's enough.

My driving philosophy about making music is that you can reduce it all down to one note if that note is played with the right kind of sincerity.

The world is full of bands and bullshit, and if I'm doing a stupid art project like rock 'n' roll then I want to spare my audience as much as possible.

If you want to be an artist, truly try to write what you believe, and if you write when you don't believe then you should try to become an actor.

I see no difference between my pictures that people consider amusing and the rest. To me, it's all serious work - they're just a reaction to what I see. I don't leave this apartment in the morning and say to myself 'Today I'm going to be funny and tomorrow I'm going to be sad.'

You can tell an honest artist from one who's just given all their songs.

When I'm writing, I mean what I'm saying - there's a lot of me in each song.

As me being somebody that makes arguably nostalgic music, I cannot stand when somebody tries to make old music just to sound old.

Honest songs aren't written for money.

Everything that I do is very autobiographical. I'm trying to be as much of an open book as possible and give the audience every single piece of me.

When your writing is unselfconscious, when it comes from your heart, that's when it's powerful.

Paint what you are, paint what you believe, paint what you feel.

So long as a novelist works selfishly for the pleasure of creating character and situation corresponding to his own illusions, ideals and intuitions, he will always produce something worth while and natural. Directly he takes himself too seriously and begins for the alleged benefit of humanity an elaborate dissection of complexes, he evolves a book that is more ridiculous and tiresome than the most conventional cold cream girl novel of yesterday.

Anything I sing is supposed to be genuine. It's not supposed to be make-believe or I'm making something for the crowd to jump or to hold up their hands.

I think the majority of musicians are interested in truth.

Writing has never been an intentional endeavor to me. I know a lot of people have experiences and then sit down and try to sort them out through song, but whenever I sit down to write, it comes out hackneyed or overly saccharine.

If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn.

I've always just focused on the work, and I've just tried to be honest with the work. If the work speaks to people, fantastic.

The music that I write, I have to actually own it and live by it, which is cool. It's no problem.