A Quote by Mary Karr
My idea of art is, you write something that makes people feel so strongly that they get some conviction about who they want to be or what they want to do. It's morally useful not in a political way, but it makes your heart bigger; it's emotionally and spiritually empowering.
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I don't know what makes a guy want to write songs and sing, but if you've got a message, you want to get it across. When I come up with an idea about the way I feel, I can really state it strongly in a song.
What is it that makes you want to write songs? In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people’s hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you’re playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack.
Fashion is fun, and fashion is a form of art and self-expression. And I think it should have a wink-wink nature to it. For me, it's about the way it makes you feel. If you want to feel sexy, you want to feel bright, you want to feel good. That's what people are attracted to - when they see you execute an emotion or an idea clearly and proudly.
I read for the 'ah-ha's,' the information that makes a light bulb go off in my mind. I want to put information in my mind that is going to be the most beneficial to me, my family and my fellow man - financially, morally, spiritually, and emotionally.
You want to do something a little bit meaningful, because we're not saving the planet or anything, but we want to contribute in a positive way, in a way that makes a difference or makes somebody feel something.
There's a kind of Ah-ha! Somebody at least for a moment feels about something or sees something the way that I do. It doesn't happen all the time. It's these brief flashes or flames, but I get that sometimes. I feel unalone—intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. I feel human and unalone and that I'm in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness in fiction and poetry in a way that I don't with other art.
Ask yourself, what makes my book so different? So interesting? Don’t write to be a best seller. Write for and from your heart, not your wallet. Write something you want to be remembered by.
I don't think drugs are a problem; I think they're a symptom. As long as Americans are empty, spiritually, emotionally, morally empty, they will need things like the drugs they choose to use. Mankind has wanted to change the way it felt from the beginning anyway. In this country there are even more reasons to want to feel different, to want to feel better, because this is such a neon sewer. This is such a degrading culture. It forces you to play Beethoven to your child in the uterus so that he will get into a better school and a better job and make more money so he can take care of you.
The thing that makes me want to write a piece of music is having something to talk about, you know? Something I want to get across. Because I'm a composer, music is my first language, and that's what I reach for when I want to convey something.
I want to tell people how to live spiritually. After you've bought all your houses and your clothes, you want something bigger.
I like playing with fashion and bending the "rules," or what was "rules" - there are no rules anymore, you know? Fashion is way bigger than that and it's about wearing what you want and wearing what makes you feel comfortable and what makes you feel confident.
I want to make art that is helpful, that's useful to people, that starts fruitful conversations. That makes you think about a question that you hadn't considered before.
I feel a big obligation to the audience, almost in a moral sense, to say something useful. If I'm going to spend a year of my life on these things, I want something that I feel that strongly about.
I find that I end up liking songs if I really have an idea of something I wat to write about-some problem in my life or something I want to work through; if I don't have something like that at the root of the song, then I think I end up not caring about it as much. I gravitate towards some kind of concept or idea or situation that I want to write about. Very often I have to write, rewrite and come at it from an opposite angle...and I end up writing the opposite song that I thought I was going to write.
I think that we all absolutely have curiosity. It brings about knowledge. It's energizing. It's spiritually empowering. It makes us more interesting as people.
Sometimes you want something really serious that makes you feel emotional and makes you think, and sometimes you do just want a pop song. What I love about Taylor Swift is that she offers both.
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