Quotes About Expression

I can't even read notes. But I can teach someone how to make a guitar smoke.

You cannot teach a person how to write songs. It's about being your own person and following your instincts.

Nobody can teach what is inside a person; it has to be discovered for oneself and a way must be found to express it.

When I'm writing, I'm never trying to teach anything - maybe I'm trying to illuminate.

Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.

I think the biggest reason I was able to express myself and not be intimidated was by not having a mother. For example, mothers teach you manners. And I absolutely did not learn any of those rules and regulations.

We don't teach kids how to feel, we don't give them the words to go by.

People think that the arts are optional and they aren't. They teach a level of emotional depth that's equally important to mathematic skill. You can replace some math skills with a calculator if you know how to operate the thing, but there's no calculator for human interaction.

I taught high school English for 24 years. I always teach my students to appreciate the beauty of language and to write poetically.

You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be.

Nobody taught Picasso how to paint - he learned for himself. And nobody can teach you to be a producer. You can learn the mechanics, but you can't learn what's right about a script or a director or an actor. That comes from instinct and intuition. It comes from inside you.

Why do you think I write these feminist songs, to try and teach myself to respect myself. You know, it's not because I'm a hero.

Conducting is a strange thing to teach.

When I was in fourth grade... this wonderful teacher said you didn't have to write a book report, you could just talk about the book, you could do a drawing of the book, you could write a play inspired by the book, and that's what I did. I got to be so famous. I had to go around to every school and perform it. It was just so natural and fun.

I had a great movement teacher - he showed me how to walk so I wasn't becoming like a cartoon.

Read something of interest every day - something of interest to you, not to your teacher or your best friend or your minister/rabbi/priest. Comics count. So does poetry. So do editorials in your school newspaper. Or a biography of a rock star. Or an instructional manual. Or the Bible.

I went whole hog at the actor's lifestyle - really embraced it. I had by then known how much I loved acting already, because I discovered acting from a teacher in the seminary - that's the first place I ever did it, in the seminary.

I've always written. When I was in school, the only teacher who ever liked me was my creative writing teacher. I used to enter poetry competitions, and I don't think I ever lost one. So I had the idea for a while of being some kind of poet.

I had a teacher in art school who said something about the only works he really enjoyed seeing or found much in were works where he had a sense that a discovery was made in the course of making this object. I like to hold to that as my marching orders.

My acting teacher used to say that people reveal themselves in their opposites.

I remember telling my creative writing teacher that you never want to have a journal, because if you lose it, then someone's going to know all your secrets. And then she stopped using a journal, but I always write everything down... Anytime I travel, I try and fill up notepads.

I think good actors are born with a kind of native gift. When you study too much with an acting teacher, that gets taken away. You lose your sense of spontaneity.

There were a few teachers who just did not like me because of my face. Once, I was told to stand in the corner until I cheered up. The attitude was, 'Oh, for God's sake, what's the matter with him?' But it's just a natural expression.

I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too.