Sharon Van Etten Quotes

Everything I was feeling, all the hurt and the pain and the emotion I was going through, I put into my music.

I didn't never have to go to a therapist. I just always put it in a song and you heard me.

I think that I can't help but put my personal pain in my music because there's a lot of it. That's my therapy.

I love pouring my heart out. People don't want to hear you whine when you're with friends, so you can sing about it instead - it's the best outlet.

I only ever really take out my guitar when I'm miserable, which isn't necessarily a very good time to do it.

These are all personal crises, I'm sure, that I manifest in a song format and project into physical situations. You make little stories up about how you feel. It's as simple as that.

If I hadn't had acting, I would probably have imploded.

For me, music is therapeutic, so the songs that came to me the easiest came from the most devastating moments of my life.

I found music when I was very dark. I felt unheard, with inner dialogues that I didn't know how to express.

I don't talk with people about how I am feeling - I just usually write a song about it.

For a long time, I couldn't tell somebody how I felt or I couldn't talk about my problems because I felt like I was complaining. Writing would help me or it would be like, I can't tell you how I feel, but I can play you a song.

We all need ways of processing things. I think I was called to music because it was this thing that was always there for me that I could pour my heart into safely.

I was bookish and awkward and wanted a means of expressing the millions of emotions flying around inside me. The piano seemed as good an outlet as any.

I've struggled with self-esteem and depression, like most singer-songwriters. I listen to my EPs on Bandcamp, and I can just hear the pain and the self-esteem struggle in my voice.

I've used songwriting as a tool, I've used it as a way of being able to talk about how I feel.

My first mixtape especially - that came from a heartbreak.

I began to paint again, even though I could barely hold the brush, but knowing exactly what I wanted to paint, I began three more large canvases... of large wheat fields under cloudy skies, and it did not take a great deal to express sadness and loneliness... I believe these paintings say what words cannot.

My music started as a way to break through weaknesses - like anxiety, which was completely taking over my whole life, where I could barely function.

I turned to music originally because of my past and needing a release or an outlet to get out anger or frustration or hurt.

I have a lot of repression. So repression is what I make movies about.

For as long as I can remember I have suffered from a deep feeling of anxiety which I have tried to express in my art.

Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can't get it out, I start feeling bad about myself - a lot of self-loathing.

I think poetry was always where I went to deal with my deepest feelings.

If I didn't have my films as an outlet for all the different sides of me, I would probably be locked up.

When something is bothering me, I write a song that tells my feelings.