Ayumi Hamasaki Quotes

I write songs about my own experiences. You can't lie to yourself. You can't pose to yourself.

How truly does this journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts--I always write it according to the humour I am in, and if astranger was to think it worth reading, how capricious--insolent & whimsical I must appear!--one moment flighty and half mad,--the next sad and melancholy. No matter! Its truth and simplicity are its sole recommendations.

When I open my mouth and sing, the truth comes out. When I write, the truth comes out. I can't lie. That, I think, is one of the strongest elements of my music. When people talk about my writing as though I'm doing it from an accountant's perspective, it really pisses me off.

I just tried to come up with some honest songs. What I was writing about was real plain stuff that I wasn't sure was going to be interesting to other people. But I guess it was.

Through language, we can tell the truth and hear the truth spoken, just as we can be deceived. Sometimes it's a painful realization: we can be lied to. As I write, I think of myself as putting my eye under oath, so that what I write is the truth about my characters.

What's the point of a song if you can't be honest?

It is important to express oneself... provided the feelings are real and are taken from your own experience.

I don't write anything that I haven't lived. In terms of integrity, you have to write what you live. And if you write beyond what you live, it is theory. And theory is not helpful. It is just not.

You need to write about something that you really know about or you deeply connect with. Don't fake it.

I think honesty is an important thing when writing a song. If you can't sing it with conviction, then no-one else is going to believe it.

I am far from sure when I am acting and when I am not or, should I more frankly put it, when I am lying and when I am not. For what is acting but lying and what is good acting but convincing lying?

It is very hard to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings – much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.

"So you're always honest," I said. "Aren't you?" "No," I told him. "I'm not." "Well, that's good to know, I guess." "I'm not saying I'm a liar," I told him. He raised his eyebrows. "That's not how I meant it, anyways." "How'd you mean it, then?" "I just...I don't always say what I feel." "Why not?" "Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said. "Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though."

As for me, I've chosen to follow a simple course: Come clean. And wherever possible, live your life in a way that won't leave you tempted to lie. Failing that, I'd rather be disliked for who I truly am than loved for who I am not. So, I tell my story. I write it down. I even publish it. Sometimes this is a humbling experience. Sometimes it's embarrassing. But I haul around no terrible secrets.

If you're gonna write, for God in heaven's sake, try to get naked. Try to write the truth. Try to get underneath all the sham, all the excuses, all the lies that you've been told.

It is now only in letters I write what I feel: not in literature any more, and I seldom say it, because I keep trying to be amusing.

You can act truthfully or you can lie. You can reveal things about yourself or you can hide. Therefore, the audience recognizes something about themselves or they don't -- You hope they don't leave the theatre thinking that was nice...now where's the cab?'

Not one of us can lie or pretend. We're all fixed in good faith in a certain concept of ourselves.

Writing, as I experience it, means wringing out the heart/mind until it stops lying.

The words to country songs are very earthy like the blues. They're not as dressed up and the people are very honest and say, 'Look, I miss you darlin', so I went out and got drunk in this bar.' That's the way you say it. Where in Tin Pan Alley they would say, 'Oh I missed you darling, so I went to this restaurant and I sat down and had a dinner for one.' That's cleaned up now, you see? But country and blues tells it like it is.

Music is the one thing in which there is no use trying to deceive others or make false pretenses.

I try to be genuine. I try to be real. It's such a subjective thing, but I try to convey an emotion.

If I cannot be myself in what I write, then the whole is nothing but lies and humbug.

Acting is all about being truthful. I'm really bad at lying. I'm one of the worst liars I know.

I know society these days, I know people are wanting to find everything they can to pick things apart, but I have to write from my heart and my experiences, and I fully own them. Those are mine to share.