Honesty in Art Quotes

If I go way back to Loretta Lynn, I always cite her as being able to capture what I think is every woman's story... she very openly used her art as an expression of what she was going through in her life. So that authenticity is something I admire.

I wouldn't want a film to be made on my life, because I suppose I would only want them to show all the good things about me and hide the awful things, and that wouldn't be a very honest biopic, no?

I've gotten to the point where I realize that I need to tell my truth in music and not walk around blabbing my mind.

If you don't live what you sing about, your mirror is gonna fade.

Like every other means of expression, photography, if it is to be utterly honest and direct, should be related to the life of the times - the pulse of today.

I started off making music that made fun of pop; now I'm nominated for helping produce pop songs that aim to be as honest as possible.

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.

[Comics is] one of the last havens for honesty when it comes to a reader's genuine response to art. Most of us, if we don't find any sympathy or pleasure, for example, in a modern painting, are likely to blame our own ignorance of the history and theory of painting. But nobody pretends to like a bad comic strip. Such harshness is necessary for any real truth to surface, I think, and for art to really contribute anything to life. Though I don't know. I could be wrong.

I think one can be more honest in fiction than in a memoir.

The hack songwriter will write the absolute truth every single word, whether it makes a great song or not.

I believe honesty comes across in music because for people that music isn't just something to dance to. For people for whom music is something that they feel, they understand what I'm talking about.

I owe you the truth in painting, and I will tell it to you.

I don't want to sign four films at a time, as acting is an art, and art cannot be done without honesty.

Authenticity resonates with people. The industry can be very misleading and is built to make people believe what they see. But people aren't dumb they can see through that and I think real music and real people resonate.

My days, my years, my life has seen up and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the 'light' and never mentioned the other, then as an artist, I would be a liar.

Any writer who says he loves writing is crazy. Or lying.

I don't need to edit names out of songs and I don't need to edit details out of my songs because I've always been able to be honest with my music. That's the one place where I'm never ever going to change how I do things.

You've got to make sure that you don't have an airbrushed picture making you look like a 15-year-old cherub when your lyrics suggest otherwise.

If nothing will finally survive of life besides what artists report of it, we have no right to report what we know to be lies.

I am an honest artist.

Let me tell so much truth. I want to tell the truth in my work. The truth will lead me to all.