Ann Demeulemeester Quotes

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.

I feel as though there are things that I'm trying to do - you know, capturing truthfully some aspect of human experience - and I'm trying really hard not to be fake. And in writing, as in life, it's harder than you think.

You've got to show your soul otherwise you're just a piece of equipment.

I think that people respond to honesty in music, so I only choose songs that are the truth for me.

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

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.

The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That's how I feel now, no matter what you're doing.

To have a songwriter that wrote so specifically what I felt to be true... I've never been much of an actor either. If something is real for me, then I can do it.

In my music and my life, I'm honest with my feelings, and people appreciate that. That's just the way I am.

What interests me most are the emotional lives of the people. If I don't have that, it's not worth doing, frankly.

I found in my writing that I could express emotions that, as an everyday person, I have no interest in expressing: these strange things that girls talk about called feelings.

The only thing I wanted to do in my music is be human and communicate all the aspects of that, which often means being vulnerable.

A lot of the work I've done has been about being very raw and open with your emotions.

What I try to do, what I attempt to do, is say things that I mean at least at an emotional level.

I try as hard as I can to write from a personal place and be genuine.

I love 'I'm British But...' It's such a sweet, innocent, open-hearted film, and it has the sort of openness that I still aspire to with everything I do. It wears its heart, head, everything on its sleeve.

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.

I think I have great responsibility, and when I do my music, when I try to relate to my audience, I just try to do it in an honest fashion, you know, just try to be as earnest as possible and sometime it may be self-effacing. Sometimes it may be finger-pointing. Sometimes it may be beautiful, and sometime it may be ugly.

I decided at 15 that I didn't want to be one of those artists that gets up and sings love songs they don't mean. I decided that I was going to be me to the fullest extent, that my songs were going to reflect relationships I've had, things I've been through, and even the stuff I'm embarrassed about.

I feel what I sing, and I sing what I feel. Really, that's all I can do.

Anything I've ever said, I certainly was feeling at the time.

I actually think it's harder to play vulnerability, because you're having to delve deeper into portions of your own psyche, what it is that makes you human.

Acting is about giving yourself away, like the U2 song 'With or Without You.' You just don't stay behind a character and make people laugh or cry. At some point you have to take off that mask, and when you do, you're a human being, not just an actor. After all, I'm Catherine the person first. You share that.

I don't really see how any song can not feel contrived if it isn't honest, and how could I write honest songs if I don't write about stuff going on in my life and how I'm feeling?

The more you're writing absolutely honestly, and absolutely bare of intention - even if it feels absolutely personal and small because it's at your own scale - other people relate to it much more.