Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you reach a certain age, you have fulfilled your childhood dream and whatever your first or second adulthood led you to do. Then you're in your third adulthood, the one that leads to the grave, and you ask yourself, "What will I do between now and then?" Instead of thinking in terms of glamour, you start thinking in terms of reform - your contribution to the world.
For me songwriting is very...it's almost like an accident. 'Oh I accidentally wrote about that.' I sit down with the urge to write a song and then afterward it turns out being really personal. I get really overwhelmed by how I feel a lot and sometimes - I feel like my body and my brain can't deal with all the different emotions and I feel like I'm just going to explode.
I thought that it's so sad there are people who live their entire lives lonely. They die and no one goes to their funeral. I thought about how sad that was and how so many people out there have that path. I know this sounds weird, but if I could go take their bones back to my house and appreciate them for what they are, it would be my way of taking that loneliness away.
I've been inspired by films since I started dancing, and I'm married to a filmmaker, and I think it was one of my secret desires, but I was afraid to just say, 'I want to be a director'. But then one day I said, O.K., stop dreaming and do it. But I didn't want to do it the Hollywood way, and talk through agents. I decided it all had to be generated by me, so I wrote it.
I love to accent movement. The eye goes to where the white is - you know, the glove. And the feet, if you're dancing, you can put an exclamation point on your movement if it has a bit of light on it. So I wore the white socks. And for the design of the jacket, I would sit with the people who made the clothes and tell them where I wanted a button or a buckle or a design.
I've been in the entertainment industry since I was six-years-old ... As Charles Dickens says, 'It's been the best of times, the worst of times.' But I would not change my career ... While some have made deliberate attempts to hurt me, I take it in stride because I have a loving family, a strong faith and wonderful friends and fans who have, and continue, to support me.
As much as I can, as much as I can afford, I keep ticket prices down. Rock 'n' roll was developed as the people's voice, the people's art, it was grassroots. I don't believe that the people should be estranged from their rock stars. They're not kings and queens - all rock stars are those who are able to give back a bit of culture to other people. It's people's heritage.
Sometimes you write passages that don't need to be rewritten. Performance is that for me. Improvisation, things that happen in the moment, are sometimes wonderful, or wonderful as a moment to be shared between performer and people, but that's it. There might be a strong bond between you and the people, a transformative night, but as a live record it might not translate.
The Yippie demonstrations were merely an attack of mental disobedience on an obediently insane society... and if you feel you have been living in an unreal world for the last couple of years, it is particularly because this power structure has refused to listen to reason... Step outside the guidelines of the official umpires and make your own rules and your own reality.
I used to sing like Nat King Cole. I mean he was the guy when I was comin' up, and you know, man, people used to say of me, "Damn, he sure do sound like Nat King Cole." But there was a day, and luckily for me it was early, when I woke up and asked myself, "Well, when are the ask me to sing because I sound like me?" So my advice is, never do anything that you don't like.
I didn't want to be a sideman. My own style was coming out and I was into my own writing. I wrote a whole album, I arranged it all with pencil and paper. I did eventually do a lot of work with my father, but that was different. I was living at home; I wasn't a starving musician. I wasn't spoiled, but I wasn't going to have some producer come in and tell me what to play.
Do you remember A Wrinkle in Time? It's a good one example. I think the character's name is Meg. I just remember she was a very logical, intelligent, advanced girl. I wouldn't say that I felt like that was who I was, but I wanted to be around her; I wanted to be like her. She had an understanding of science and was incredibly curious - an interesting, complex young girl.
When I moved to L. A. with this little wimpy garage band, the first people we met were the Doors. Then we met Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin. All of the people who died of excess were our big brothers and sisters. So I said to myself: How do you become a legend and enjoy it? The answer is to create a character as legendary as those guys and leave that character on the stage.
The lyrics just come out, and I don't know where from. I'm an incredible failure in relationships. I think there's a romantic ideal that I'm aspiring for. I don't know. The lyrics are always about unsuccessful relationships. They're not all about the love between a man and a woman. It's about friendship and family. Deep down there's a lot of talk about general existence.
College radio is a very important medium that needs to survive in difficult economic times when some stations are being sold off and shut down. College radio is the future for broadcasting stars and pioneers of tomorrow, and we as a band, Coldplay, support the vital mission of college radio and we also support College Radio Day, the day when college radio comes together.
If I had to spend equal time doing paintings, and equal time going to galleries and doing art business, and equal time making music, and equal time going to record companies, or to the publicist or to the lawyer, forget it. It would take four times as long to do all that stuff. Unless I had a patron. That's why Leonardo da Vinci was successful. He had the Medicis, right?
We [Paramore] are very different people at home, but the people that we are on-stage is just a side of us that our crowd and the audience that comes to our shows brings out of us. Different people bring different sides out of each other, and for sure our fans bring out the most hyper and ridiculous side of us because we get so psyched to see everyone when we're on stage.
We've had experience of involvement in a local scene, and it was a good one, and we've learned a lot from it, and I don't have any need to join into that ever again. It's too counterproductive to writing music and performing to the best of your abilities. It's okay when you're 20 years old - you're getting out there and you're learning - but not when you're 30 years old.
I was very shy as a kid but when I found out I could perform and have people's attention everything changed for me. My mom likes to joke that until I was eight or nine I only knew what my sneakers looked like because I constantly walked around with my head down. But all of a sudden the stage made sense and that's what brought me out of my shell and a monster was created.
I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work - just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.
That happens a lot when people become parents, too. There's just so much at stake suddenly, and you're also witness to the total miracle of birth, and stuff like that. So I started reading tons of religious texts and checking everything out. One of the things I wanted to make sure of on the record is that it still has a "searching" vibe rather than an authoritative vibe.
I had met Michael Stipe, and he was such a kind person, and extremely understanding, so I asked him if he knew a photographer who would come to Detroit, where I lived, who would be child friendly and who would respect my home. Michael suggested Steven [ Sebring]. One day a knock came at my door, and when I opened it, there was Steven. He's been like a brother ever since.
We do not find happiness by being assertive. We don't find happiness by running over people because we see what we want and they are in the way of that happiness so we either abandon them or we smash them. The Scriptures don't teach us to be assertive. The Scriptures teach us — and this is remarkable — the Scriptures teach us to be submissive. This is not a popular idea.
If my life is motivated by my ambition to leave a legacy, what I'll probably leave as a legacy is ambition. But if my life is motivated by the power of the Spirit in me, if I live with the awareness of the indwelling Christ, if I allow His presence to guide my actions, to guide my motives, those sort of things. That's the only time I think we really leave a great legacy.
Make no mistake, your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other. To live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.
The earliest issue I can remember going through was body image issues. I was a chubby little kid and I got made fun of for it. I dealt with horrible, horrible self esteem issues, and I still struggle with that. I think it's what taught me a lot of empathy and compassion, though, but there are those days where I look in the mirror and I still see twelve year old fat Sara.
Standing there at the stage door to the rest of your life. Time to dip your toe into the deep end. Try things. Say hi already. Laugh a lot. Mess up. Apologize. Mess up again. Hug people. Take chances. Trust yourself. Lose things. Get over it. Hold your friends close. Gather your strength. Gain wisdom and beautiful stories. Be brave, and you'll have the time of your life.
These days, I find I'm applying a little more patience to my process. If I look back on my work, I can see those songs I bailed on could have been better, that had those great two verses and then I kind of coasted from there. These days, if a song is giving me trouble, I put it aside and pick it up later, and keep doing that, for a year if I have to, until it takes shape.
What comes first? The melody, always. It's all about singing the melodies live in my head. They go in circles. I guess I'm quite conservative and romantic about the power of melodies. I try not to record them on my Dictaphone when I first hear them. If I forget all about it and it pops up later on, then I know it's good enough. I let my subconscious do the editing for me.
There is truth in little corners of our lives. There are hints of it in songs and children's eyes. It's familiar, like an ancient lullaby; What do I live for? If we've eyes to see... If we've ears to hear... To find it in our hearts and mouths the word that saves is near. Shed that shallow skin... Come and live again... Leave all you were before... To believe is to begin.
In terms of our democracy, we are sort of shrugging our shoulders and saying, oh dear, Guantánamo, that's so awful, that's so awful, but it's here. The pendulum usually swings from left to right and then right to left, but there are so many people in power who have taken the pendulum and just pinned it to the right that there is a fear that it's never going to swing back.
I've always been outspoken about the fact that I have no care for material things. I'm not going to post a picture of being inside a fancy jet. It doesn't mean anything to me. But I find it funny that - in an organic way - sometimes I find myself in this room with these wealthy businessmen drinking thousand dollar bottles of wine because of where I've gotten in my career.
I don't know where creativity comes from, but I think everybody has the ability to be creative. I think what's important about creativity starts when you're very young and how we're allowed to experience our imagination. The people who bring us up and teach us are fundamental in either encouraging creativity or discourging creativity. My imagination was always encouraged.
In our darkest hour, in my deepest despair, Will you still care? Will you be there? In my trials and my tribulations, Through our doubts and frustrations, In my violence and my turbulence, Through my fear and my confessions, And my anguish and my pain, Through my joy and my sorrow, In the promise of another tomorrow, I'll never let you part, For you're always in my heart.
To clink glasses of a freshly made, seasonal beer, preferably in a pub or garden, with friends and perhaps new acquaintances, is a ritual that makes every participant feel good. We may not rationalize this at the time, but it gives us a sense of place in our common community and our time in the tides of life on earth. This is a way to value beer and treat it with respect.
There's no grand excellence to it. In my experience it was just almost the gulaggy boringness of it that'll kill you. You're just in this murk. And you're with other humans, but you lose all your human skills and it's just like you're in this plastic bag and you can't quite connect with people. You lose your ability to transmit electricity or something, and to receive it.
When there's something that impacts a family member or friend, that is difficult for them, you want to do what you can to help. Sometimes you can't do anything and it makes you feel like you're helpless, so those emotions cross a big barometer, but they're a big, broad stroke when it comes to someone who you care about. If you have compassion in your heart, you just care.
He'd once heard a story about a monastery on the top of some mountain in Japan or somewhere. After a long trek in the cold to get there, the monks would offer to sell you a cup of coffee. You had a choice: There was a two-dollar cup - or a two-hundred- dollar cup. When pressed to explain the difference, the monks were reported to say, 'A hundred and ninety-eight dollars.'
(Talks about a school production) 'There was one solo; but it was a guy. It was this character called 'Freddy Fast Talk' and it was the bad guy. I didn't care, I was like I will dress up like a guy, I want to sing that song. And so I remembered we drew on eyebrows, and I had like a moustache,and we put all my hair up in this hat. So I dressed like a guy and sang the solo.
Well you wave your hand and they scatter like crows They have nothing that will ever capture your heart They're just thorns without the rose Be careful of them in the dark Oh, if I was the one you chose to be your only one Oh baby can't you hear me now, can't you hear me now Will I see you tonight on a downtown train Every night it's just the same, you leave me lonely now
There was a band very early on in our class, and I played in that band and as a teenager, I continued. It was more from my own relationship with the instruments at this time, figuring out the instrument and then having to learn different pieces that I really got into music. I really discovered the almost transcending power of music. And I think that is why I am so into it.
There's this idea that artists are free and that means that we can do whatever we want to do. And it's very important to engage with this idea, just as human beings, that we are free to do what we wanna do. So the real question becomes, then, what do we wanna do? And as one gets to know oneself, one finds that there are things that return again and again that you wanna do.
"The way I feel about music -- any song, any style -- is that there is no right and wrong, only true and false. If the music and lyrics are conceived out of honesty and if the production of the song goes along with its original message, then what has been expressed is art, regardless of what anyone's opinion is of it. So things are a lots impler if you just tell the truth.
I don't feel very good about myself. People always leave me. Nobody can stand me for very long. I wish I could cut my tongue out, or take out the part of my brain that has opinions. Or cares. I wish I could be simple. Be quiet, introverted, or shy. I'm half way in between a wallflower at a party and Elvis Presley. People love one or the other. In between is no place to be.
I struggle sometimes superficially with my management or with my own career about how much time I spend traveling or giving myself away to promote my music or myself when I'd rather be gardening or surfing or being at home with my loved ones. And everyone struggles with that; everyone struggles with having to go to work. And I struggle with how humankind ended up this way.
One thing I'm most passionate about is that I'm geared up and ready for another cycle of touring, to go out in the world and be whoever I need to be for someone. For a lot of people they just want to see you or want to take a photograph of that moment. Some people they simply just want to hear you. And others actually have things they want to share and talk with you about.
There has never been a time on Earth like we see today. What we need are more ways to experience our interconnectedness - it is a precursor to deep love. So in this quickening light, with the dawn of each new day, let us look for love. Let us no longer struggle. Let us ever become who we most want to be. As we begin to be who we truly are, the world will be a better place.
I’m sure there’s some self-help cheese-ball book about the gray area, but I’ve been having this conversation with my friends who are all about the same age and I’m saying, ‘Y’know, life doesn’t happen in black and white.’ The gray area is where you become an adult the medium temperature, the gray area, the place between black and white. That’s the place where life happens.
We don't know love like we should. We always talk about 'I have unconditional love' unconditional love is... we don't even know it. Because if a person stops stimulating us, we stop loving them. You're not interesting to talk to anymore, goodbye. But that real love, that love that sometimes is difficult, difficult to have. That's that love. And that's a confidence builder.
I love Elizabeth Taylor. I'm inspired by her bravery. She has been through so much and she is a survivor. That lady has been through a lot and she's walked out of it on two feet. I identify with her very strongly because of our experiences as child stars. When we first started talking on the phone, she told me she felt as if she had known me for years. I felt the same way.