Eric Carmen Quotes

My concepts are never bright ideas; they're never notions I think will sell or be trendy or attract new fans. I don't think that way. All I can do is sing from my life.

To be a true artist, I have to be true to who I am now and write that way.

Do stuff that is true to your own experiences.

Make sure that everything you produce and create is organic to you.

Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.

I do not just write, I write what I am. If there is a secret, perhaps that is it.

I always write what feels really true and honest and me.

Don't try to write what other people are writing - write what is true to you.

My interest lies in my self-expression - what's inside of me - not what I'm in.

You have to be who you are when you do music.

The responsibility of an artist is to be honest with themselves.

You just get out there and be what you want to be. That's part of evolving and part of staying true to yourself - part of remaining alive in a real authentic, long-term sense creatively: not listening to what other people tell you to be.

I don't feel I have to be Jackson Browne. Still, I like to say something.

A lot of artists are afraid to be themselves and afraid to tell people what it really is.

I think, at the end of the day, it comes down to authenticity and creating what you love.

No matter what I put out, no matter what genre - because I feel like I'm going to experiment with everything - I hope people will see that it's true to me, that it's honest, and nobody ever thinks that I'm inauthentic.

Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.

People ask me all the time, "What are your influences? Are you trying to do Beckett?" It's like, "No, I'm trying to do me." Whatever that is. I don't know what that is, but that's the basis. I'm trying to be true and I'm trying to be honest.

It means abandoning being a poet, abandoning your careerism, abandoning even the idea of writing any poetry, really abandoning, giving up as hopeless - abandoning the possibility of really expressing yourself to the nations of the world. Abandoning the idea of being a prophet with honor and dignity, and abandoning the glory of poetry and just settling down in the muck of your own mindYou really have to make a resolution to write for yourself, in the sense of not writing to impress yourself, but just writing what your self is saying.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

Everyone always comes to one point in their life as an artist where you can either let your heart guide you or your ego.

I've learnt that I've had the best results from just trying to be me, trying to make a movie or TV show I want to see or write a script I want to read, and that's really all I can offer - being authentic.

When I sing along with Britney Spears I will sing in an American accent. But eventually I found my own voice. My songs are so brutally honest, it would be alien to sing in any accent other than my own. Don't get me wrong - I can imitate singers. I can do bar mitzvahs and weddings.

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.