Quotes About Authenticity

If this were all to go away tomorrow, all the big success, I would still be very happy going from bar to bar playing music for people.

You wouldn't meet a Joe Frazier down today and then up tomorrow, said hello to big shots then ignore someone on the lower level; he was the most consistent human being. What you see is what you get.

Who you are as a person is more special than trying to be someone you're not. Don't get me wrong - I have bad days, everyone does, but I know if I'm feeling insecure today, I'll move on tomorrow. I'd tell girls to realise it's OK to have bad days to get to the good ones.

I'm not paralyzed with fear, but I realize it is important to live as if there's no tomorrow, always trying to maintain your integrity and have no regrets.

My parents' example of a loving, caring relationship, I think, has affected my songwriting a ton and allowed me to start writing love songs that people could connect to without sounding like you're being cheesy, because they're coming from a real place, something that I saw coming up. I think they're a huge influence on my songwriting.

I was the worst teacher you have ever imagined - not that we did not have fun. We had a ton of fun. We just did not learn any scripture. I would think all week long what could I talk about on Sunday, and then I would scramble on Saturday to find some kind of scripture to go with it. This was my teaching.

I always try to find things worth saying, things that are supposed to be said instead of being contrived. I do a ton of writing.

I can't tone it down. I'm being me and being myself.

I just like wearing what I like and I can't tone it down.

Robert Ludlum, all of them, write the absolute best they can. You can't tone it down. You just do what you do, and if it comes out literary, so be it.

On stage you need to emphasize every emotion. But on screen you need to tone everything down and make it believable.

I'm not going to tone down my rhetoric, and I'm not going to censor myself in sharing what I believe to be the truth. People could either love that or hate that, but I'm not really interested in playing games in order to appeal to a broader audience.

I can't tone it down. I'm being me, and I'm being myself, and I'd be doing myself an injustice, and I'd be doing an injustice to those kids who don't feel like they're comfortable to be themselves.

My goal is never to tone down.

I didn't feel like going any further in this scene with the boy. He was not a professional actor, and if I had pushed the scene any further it would have destroyed the tone of the movie.

I work really hard not to have a kitsch tone to any of my work, particularly radio stuff, which sometimes goes in that direction on certain programs.

It's funny, because people always say when they meet me, having read me - or they read me, having met me - that they are struck by how the tone is pretty similar, in real life and in the books.

I don't try to worry about sounding like anybody because I know I have my own tone, my own sound. It's just about being honest in a song and trying to relate myself or how to basically break it down as simple as possible for someone to try to understand it. Not being too deep, not being too shallow at the same time.

If a writer is always trying to keep a narrator emitting a tone of complete knowingness, it can become false.

Instagram is not a place for tone or irony.

Character is key. Once you've got that voice going, everything else can follow. If you've also got the right tone, you're in the right area - an inconsistent tone can screw up a project.

It's so funny to think about it now, but I kind of toned everything down about myself for 'Idol.' When it came down to song choices, or hair choices, or stuff like that, producers had the final say. I never got to sing, for instance, a female artist's song.

Let your tongue speak what your heart thinks.

I went through an evolutionary process of learning to have a voice and how to use it, knowing when to step in. I don't always get it right, for sure. However, it's better to speak your mind than hold your tongue and wish you had said something.