Top 141 Quotes & Sayings by James Arthur - Page 2

I was having anxiety attacks, calling ambulances out and saying I was having a heart attack, as there was something weird going on with my body and mind.

I didn't realise how devastating my behavior could be - looking back, I'm very embarrassed. I just buckled under the anxiety.

I've always thought I'm pretty ugly.

I think a lot of things get blown out of proportion in the media.

I just think you have got to bring out good music.

For me, I've always been the guy who self-sabotages.

I'm not a shiny pop star.

I think Justin Bieber and Zayn have both been listening to me a lot, and they basically wanna be me.

It's all about respect. I'm not going to treat a woman like a piece of meat.

I'm very much a 'boyfriend' type of guy. I've been in relationships since I was 16.

People who aren't artists don't think about creativity and art; they think about money.

Me and my mum didn't see eye-to-eye for a lot of years, and I've never really felt connected with my dad, because he wasn't there.

Having watched 'X Factor' over the years, they just haven't got it right. The male winners haven't been believable. They look like puppets; they sound like puppets.

When I've got a girlfriend, I like to be with them as much as possible, and I'm very affectionate.

Not only was I an 'X Factor' winner that got dropped by Syco - and when that happens, you're never heard of again - but everyone thought I was a clown.

'X Factor' was the best experience of my life to be part of a show watched by so many people.

Everyone wrote me off, including me.

People had told me to try 'The X Factor' for years, but I thought I'd be moody and hate it all. But it's what I needed. I asked Mum and Dad to come to my 'X Factor' audition, and it was the first time that they'd been in the same room in years.

When an attractive woman shows any interest in me, I'm immediately alerted.

I've done a few face palms after things I've said because it's stupid. But if I'm not like that, I won't feel human anymore. I'll just feel like some robot saying what I'm supposed to say. I think that's when people lose it.

I'd say to all kids, don't have a tattoo until you're 21.

I probably suffered with depression.

I had nothing and lived in the most insignificant place.

I don't do media training. I don't do that.

Yes I got into things with girls who only liked me because of who I was. But I learnt my lesson quickly.

I've always maintained a good relationship with Simon Cowell, and obviously I have a great respect for him, and his show provided me with a platform to reach a lot of people, so I have the upmost respect for Simon Cowell.

Inside, I'm optimistic.

There's no doubt in my mind or anyone else's mind that people like Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding, and Sam Smith are where they are because they're supremely talented people, and I have a lot of respect for them.

I don't think I made it clear where I was mentally when I appeared on 'X Factor.' There was so much pressure and a lot of judging. But I wanted to take a chance on the show because I wanted to make something of myself. 'X Factor' seemed like the only way out.

My music is about love, and I don't discriminate against any type of person.

'The X Factor' saved me.

I don't know if speaking to a therapist is right for everyone.

I had some glamour models messaging me on Twitter and saying they think I'm hot, but I'm being careful.

Who hasn't had interest from Rita Ora?

I was on the dole.

If you haven't got help, all you can do is make good music.

My Number 1 Award is going to go on my mantelpiece, and I'll probably kiss it for two weeks solid every time I pass it!

I went from absolutely nothing to a lot of people judging me overnight, and it was really tough for me.

I think Sam Smith's dad got a huge loan or something to help his career. Those things can help artists get attention, but I guess my song 'Say You Won't Let Go' proved it's about the song.

One of my fans made a lifelike doll of me. It was incredible - it looked just like me - but an effigy is kinda weird.

I can't read my poem "Distracted by an Ergonomic Bicycle" without thinking of Seattle, where the events of the poem took place, and I can't read "In Defense of the Semicolon" without thinking of Toronto - but why should that matter to anyone else? If another reader imagines "In Defense of the Semicolon" taking place in New Orleans, great.

It makes sense to me that the polyglot wouldn't know what language he dreamed in.

I do own CDs by Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and Joni Mitchell, but I don't think of them as being major influences on my writing.

I try not to think in terms of what poems or poets should do. Most of us appreciate a wide diversity in music, in cooking, in movies, but in our own medium, poetry, we often fail to make allowances for tastes and projects other than our own.

If poems very different from my own bring pleasure to a group of readers, who am I to say that the poems should have been written differently?

Poetry isn't an efficient tool for preserving experience, any more than it's an efficient mode of communication, but who says that it should be efficient?

When you recite you're giving a performance, in the way that an actor or a singer performs, and some poets are not interested in doing that, maybe because they're writing for a readership as opposed to an audience, or because they see poetry as a very private art.

For me, poetry is a way of thinking, and like many poets, I'm driven by the idea of trying to find the impossible, perfect words: the words that will hold my subject.

And treating poetry as a performing art emphasizes its ephemerality. A printed poem can be endlessly reprinted, photocopied, scanned, uploaded, cut and pasted - but a performance, even if somebody's there with a video camera, is one time only: the audience experiences something that won't exist when the performance is over, and which won't ever be reproduced in exactly the same form. I find that appealing.

Memorizing the work of others definitely made me a better writer.

I like poems that affect me emotionally and also provoke me to further, deeper thought. I enjoy challenge, but not, I think, for its own sake.

I do consider myself Canadian, but I feel American, too. I've spent more than fifteen years in each of the two countries, so really I just think of myself as a dual citizen, which is what I am. Thankfully, I've never been forced to choose!

My ideal reader is somebody who reads my poems out loud.

As a species, we create tools to control our environment. What excites my imagination is wilderness: our materials' ability to escape our control.

It is hard to compare cultures without overgeneralizing, but I think a lot of American poetry has an assertiveness - an upbeat quality - that's less typical of Canadian poetry. Of course there are poets in both countries to whom that generalization does not apply. Speaking broadly, I'd describe Canadians as being a bit more reserved than Americans. Not less opinionated - just less direct.

I believe strongly in what John Keats called negative capability: the trait or practice that allows a poet to remain in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason. For Keats, William Shakespeare exemplified negative capability, and I do think it's extraordinary that for all the thousands of pages Shakespeare left behind, we really don't know much about Shakespeare's own personality or opinions.

Our analytical faculties allow us to look critically at our writing and interpret it. Sometimes we make bold, impulsive edits to our poems, but most forms of precision and economy in poetry, it seems to me, are signatures of the analytical mind.

It's true, there aren't many explicit references to Canada in my book. And not many explicit references to the U.S., either. I try to fill my poems with enough real, observed detail that the poems create a believable world - but I don't write poems for the sake of telling my own story. My life is not important or interesting enough to warrant that kind of documentary. Instead I try to use my experience as a way of understanding situations that are common to many people. I want readers to project their own lives onto my poems.

Start listening to what you say. Are your comments and ideas negative? You aren't going become positive if you always say negative things. Do you hear yourself say"I could never do that","I never have any luck","I never get things right". Wow - that's negative self-talk! Try saying"I am going to do that","I am so lucky""I always try to get things right". Can you hear how much better that sounds?

In my case, performance is part of the medium. Sometimes I feel that it's my main medium, and that the presentation of my poems on the page is secondary.