Martha Wainwright Quotes

The whole point about vision is that it's very individual, it's very personal, and it has to be confessional. It has to be something which hurts - the pulling out of it and putting it on the page hurts. Art can be about the individual writer's response to his or her condition, and if that response comes out of a predigested belief about what the audience wants to hear about the writer's condition, then it has no truth, it has no validity. You either write with your own blood or nobody's. Otherwise it's just ink.

My life is not a political campaign. I just write about what is on my mind. I just play whatever I feel like playing. Whatever is in my soul at the time is what I want to do. I have, thank god, enough people who are still interested in what I am doing so that I can go out and keep doing it.

I use myself for each part. Naturally, it's my body, it's my soul, it's my feelings. That's the only way I know how to work. I couldn't pretend.

Sometimes I think it's the responsibility of the artist to reveal a little more of themselves.

I never think of my audience when I write a poem. I try to write out of whatever is haunting me; in order for a poem to feel authentic, I have to feel I'm treading on very dangerous ground, which can mean that the resulting revelations may prove hurtful to other people. The time for thinking about that kind of guilt or any collective sense of responsibility, however, occurs much later in the creative process, after the poem is finished.

Self-expression is my goal, I want to be real with my feelings. Singing and dancing and all the joy that goes with performing come from my heart. If I can't feel it, I won't do it.

I'm not writing just classic-sounding songs, but songs that come from experience.

There's not much that I'm closed off about, and the universe gave me all that so I could help people feel like they don't have to be something they're not or feel like they have to fake happy. There's nothing worse than being fake happy.

Autobiography is not important. Authenticity is important. The writer must fire herself through the text, be the molten stuff that welds together disparate elements. I believe there is always exposure, vulnerability, in the writing process, which is not to say it is either confessional or memoir. Simply, it is real.

When I'm on stage, and when I'm comfortable or uncomfortable, I have sort of a knee-jerk reaction to try to make people laugh. It's my version of a handshake to show that I want to make a connection and to show what I'm truly like. It's kind of my statement like, "This is what I'm really like. I'd like you to love me."

I tend to lose myself in the moment. I’m not very good at holding back. I don’t know how to do this without feeling everything. My emotions are the tool I use to perform.

What I write is emotionally honest and truthful as the human experience can be, to make people feel less alone, or at least that's the hope.

You know what, I just write what I feel.

I don't think you get to good writing unless you expose yourself and your feelings.

People used to say my music was too difficult or too obscure, and I never set out to be difficult or obscure. I just set out to write what I felt as honestly as I could, and I am delighted when other people feel a part of themselves in the music.

Music is infinite and personal. I don't want to put myself in a box. I want to try everything and I'm trying everything. I'm really trying to write what's in my heart and what I feel without a lot of help in that department. It's about being brave.

I better be honest about my feelings, even those involving loneliness, jealousy, and fear.

I would feel really dishonest writing a song that was really sassy, or really confident, because I'm not a supremely confident being. I think that's what people find interesting about what I do; it's very different lyrically.

The less attention I pay to what people want and the more attention I pay to just writing the book I want to write, the better I do.

When I'm writing music, I'm not acting it out - it's all me. I feel that my responsibility is to be truthful about myself, first and foremost. I'm not going to sing things I don't believe in no matter who is benefitting from it.

It's so easy for me to do a boy-bashing pop song, but to sit down and write honestly about something that's really close to me, something I've been through, it's a totally different thing.

With songs, I've always pledged to be honest. I write my songs because I've lived them.

I can't hide my feelings.

It is always easier to write from the heart and deal with things in the present.

I like to write about the things I care about. It's no fun to sing about things you don't like.