Quotes About Authenticity

Sometimes I listen to songs by very smart writers who assume that the world is a civil place with certain formalities that people follow, but I don't see things that way. My own experience tells me that life is not like that.

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

What makes me furious, not just because we're in an interview, but I don't like when writers take your words and put them somewhere else, in the wrong context in their own article about you.

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.

The writer can choose what he writes about but he cannot choose what he is able to make live.

I feel like a lyricist is somebody that writes their own lyrics. Now songwriters and lyricists are two totally different things. You can't really be a lyricist if you didn't write your lyrics. There's no passion, there's nothing in it coming from you. It's somebody else's feelings and you just taking it and running with it.

The sublime moment seems to be only a product of allowing yourself to get through, to get to a lot of stuff in your life, write about a lot of stuff and not edit yourself. That is a great lesson to learn for anybody that writes or creates in anyway, to be able to make something without being good or bad.

In the beginning of Audioslave, I was very honest. I said, 'We make great albums and write great albums - but don't be under the impression I'm going to be a lyricist that writes anything other than what strikes me as inspiring in the moment.' The lyrics weren't going to be focused politically.

I think that readers believe that a writer becomes friends with the people he interviews and writes about - and I think there are some writers who do that - but that hasn't happened to me. I do think it's dangerous because then you write the article to please them, which is a terrible error.

My favourite author as a child and teenager, and who I still re-read now, is K. M. Peyton. She writes very truthfully; sometimes I'm not sure if I've actually done things or just experienced them in her books.

Especially as a chef, I didn't really want to talk about it because I felt like it kind of undermined my entire career. How can a chef who writes recipes and books and cooks on TV, how can he realistically have bulimia?

The thing running through me is the same thing that writes songs. It's the fighter about to get into the ring. It's like, I'm not here to entertain you; I'm here to get this out, whatever it is.

Every historian with professional standards speaks or writes what he believes to be true.

The only thing that's authentic about what a writer writes is his work.

There's this idea of a star, and this person is very aloof and writes all the music, and they don't talk to anyone unless they go through the record label. And I always felt very uncomfortable about that.

If you're somebody who writes songs or writes fiction, a writer that people pay for your opinion in any way, you shouldn't be the least bit uncomfortable giving it to them. People want songwriters to tell them how they think and how they feel. That's what a song is. That's what I want to hear in a song.

When Joseph Wambaugh writes about the LAPD, you listen because you know he knows the scene. Lots of people write cop novels, but they don't have that authenticity.

Just because someone may or may not have someone that writes some words for them doesn't mean that, A, they don't have to kill it on the performance, and, B, they don't have to have the ear for what's tight and what's not, which is something a lot of people don't have.

I think that Chad Gray is one of the most honest, emotional, real vocalists there is; he really takes a lot of pride in writing the lyrics, takes a lot of time with them. He writes and re-writes more than just about anybody I've ever been around.

I know Ed Sheeran writes with a bunch of fantastic writers, but for me, it's quite difficult to be that honest with other people.

Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.

Letters are something from you. It's a different kind of intention than writing an e-mail.

I've never been a very prolific person, so when creativity flows, it flows. I find myself scribbling on little notepads and pieces of loose paper, which results in a very small portion of my writings to ever show up in true form.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.