Stephen Malkmus Quotes

I'm giving all that I have in this life. I'm opening up my notebook, and I'm saying everything in there out loud.

I have definitely learned - and this is definitely a human nature thing - that people are willing to, in an interaction with a comedian, admit things and talk about things with candor that they would never admit to a group of friends or an individual.

Talking about my deepest and darkest secrets to the world makes me feel better. It's cathartic.

If we admit our depression openly and freely, those around us get from it an experience of freedom rather than the depression itself.

I reveal too much of myself.

My whole act is confession.

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

There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said.

An autobiography is not about pictures; it's about the stories; it's about honesty and as much truth as you can tell without coming too close to other people's privacy.

Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.

Isn't it time you came out and told the world what you believe?

I think the reason I have secrets is because there are a lot of things I haven't been able to let out, and I'm able to let them out through the screen and this medium.

The act of writing can be a form of release - a confession performs the same action: putting your inner life on the page or into the hands of a trusted person releases tensions and sheds light on what often seems hidden until spoken - or written.

I'm more honest in my lyrics than I am in anything else. It's where I feel the most safe to express myself.

We are as sick as our secrets, so I tell everything.

I always like to vent and tell the truth in my music.

I've been told that I overshare. Sometimes I get criticized for it, but how else would I be if not all of me?

Really unfiltered personal writing is cool to me. I'm like, 'How did you show that to everyone?'

I'm pretty sure I would have managed to over-share no matter what time period I was born in. It's a family thing, too.

You go to someone and you think, 'I'll tell him this.' But why? The impulse is that the telling is going to relieve you. And that's why you feel awful later--you've relieved yourself, and if it truly is tragic and awful, it's not better, it's worse---the exhibitionism inherent to a confession has only made the misery worse.

The most defenseless tenderness and the bloodiest of powers have a similar need of confession. Western man has become a confessing animal.

I want to unfold. Let no place in me hold itself closed, for where I am closed, I am false.

That catharsis is really the core of the incredibly personal comedy of Louis C.K. or Marc Maron or whatever. And look - I find it fascinating that I'm sitting here talking about some of these things, and not to low tones, and my kids are in the other room. I have to trust that if they hear what I'm saying and they have questions about it, I'll be able to answer it, and that's fine. But that's part of the scariness of it - the reality of opening up my own life and my own feelings.

I became a psychotherapist because that's where people will unburden themselves, where they will show what is in their hearts.

When you get that opportunity to be honest and open with somebody, for the first time, and share things about yourself that you haven't been able to share before, that you might be scared of or ashamed about, that's really exhilarating, and I think that's something that people will really identify with.