Quotes About Expression

Acting is my first love. There are still so many characters inside of me that are waiting to come out.

I would come home after school and begin to create videos, because there was people waiting to see new content from me.

I was raised by my grandparents, and they always made sure that I had a pencil and some paper, whether we were in the car or at a restaurant. While they were enjoying a nice meal, I would be sitting there drawing funny pictures of the waitress.

My stand-up has always been very character-based. I'm not really the kind of person that's like, 'Hey, here's what's on my mind! Tip your waitress!' I would create the jokes based on the character I was playing. It was always a performance-based thing for me.

What I look for in music is artistry, sincerity, and simplicity, and Tom Waits has all of that. I want to make a connection to the creator.

My heroes: Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Nina Simone.

I would love to work with Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, B.B. King. I'd love to do something with Arctic Monkeys, Miles Kane, and The Last Shadow Puppets. If I got a call from Juliette Lewis or PJ Harvey, or Chrissie Hynde, that'd be a thrill.

Men have a lot less to write about, unless you're somebody like Tom Waits or John Lennon. And the female voice is much more suited to melody. Men have this barky thing - we're domesticated apes with a microphone.

I have a piano in my kitchen. I read a great biography about Tom Waits that said that he had a piano in his kitchen; he had a grand piano in his kitchen. And I thought, 'Well, if Tom Waits has one, then I must.'

I'm always sad when Dad doesn't like my columns. He waits for them every week and usually likes them, in which case he doesn't say a word - it's only if he's critical that he bothers to call.

I know it sounds weird, but the kind of music I write isn't the kind of music that I listen to, which is quite underground, left-of-centre stuff like PJ Harvey and Tom Waits.

One of my biggest influences of all time would be somebody like Tom Waits. David Bowie is another huge influence. I'm also a big fan of St. Vincent and Leslie Feist.

I never got a chance to do Tom Waits or PJ Harvey kind of stuff in the Gaslight Anthem.

It is normal for me to wake and find myself writing in the dark... or to be out of my tomb, caught in an unearthly world, alive with the images that haunt me.

I wake up and play a different person every day. Playing all these different characters and trying to figure out who your true authentic self is at the core of that as you're playing all these different roles, and man, that self-awareness starts to come into effect. And you start to see who you really are.

I wake up every day in a different headspace, so on any given day, my hairstyle will change.

What we do is wake up every morning and think about how we get more music out to people; how do we get better music? We breathe, eat, and sleep music.

Writing is a spiritual practice in that people that have no spiritual path can undertake it and, as they write, they begin to wake up to a larger connection. After a while, people tend to find that there is some muse that they are connecting to.

My ideal is to wake up in the morning and run around the meadow naked.

It's more fun to have a name rather than a number. I think this gives our products a personality. I get the names from literature, movies, opera, traveling, nature, poetry, sometimes even the street. I keep a small book that I write in. I wake up in the middle of the night and jot down a name for a lipstick or an eyeshadow.

When I taught art, I was always asked, 'How do you know you're an artist? What makes you an artist?' And to me, it's like breathing. You don't question if you breathe; you have to breathe. So if you wake up in the morning, and you have to realize an idea, and there's another idea, and another, maybe you are really an artist.

I don't know what drives me, but I wake up in the morning, and I want to participate in the creative cultural conversation.

What keeps me interested is that I have to do it. It's like people wake up and they have to breathe; I have to write songs; I have to make music. That's like eating or breathing to me. It's that simple.

My studio's always in my house. I want to wake up and be like, 'You know I'm gonna make music today in my underwear. You know what, I'm gonna be in my pajamas. You know what, I'm actually just gonna stay inside for the next three days so I can make music.'