Erin McKeown Quotes
When I began writing songs, there was a pretty direct line between what was happening in my life and what I wrote about. So my first album was really all about my failed attempts to make a particular relationship work.
Quotes to Explore
-
The first thing my writing ever earned me wasn't an advance on a book; it wasn't a fee for an article or anything like that. It was, in fact, a residency at Hedgebrook Farm.
-
The beauty of 'The Hunger Games' and also 'Game of Thrones,' in fairness, both projects have really complex, three-dimensional, contradictory, strong women... The writing of female characters is extraordinary and equal to the men.
-
I didn't live at school, I lived where I could and studied what I enjoyed studying. I took what I wanted from that education but was making my first record at the same time. I don't know anyone from school. I was just leading a different life. I was really interested in writing and other things.
-
Writing books is a nice retreat. There's nothing quite like diving into a book for a few hours. That is a big time vacation.
-
To me, there is nothing more soothing than the song of a mosquito that can't get through the mesh to bite you.
-
I listened to country music my whole life. I started writing music when I was a teenager. It all came out country.
-
Good acting is all in the writing. If it isn't on the page, then it really won't make any difference. You cannot act on force of personality alone.
-
Writing is agony. I hate it.
-
The morning is always my best time of the day for writing because that's when my head is best.
-
I start writing with only the vaguest idea about who my characters are and what is going to happen, and the characters and plot come into existence as I go. I've tried doing it the other way, but for me, outlining is a waste of time because I never follow the outline.
-
What you hear about the band is always going to be more disturbing than any particular song.
-
I first encountered Bradbury's writing when I was pretty young. He's a great bridge author between young-adult fiction and literature.
-
When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.
-
One of my real goals was to hear someone whistling a song I'd written.
-
I have now attained the true art of letter-writing, which we are always told, is to express on paper exactly what one would say to the same person by word of mouth.
-
It's really weird when we're out of the country, whether we're in Brazil or Greece or some crazy place like France or Germany. When you hear your song on the radio or in a store, and you're in a different country, it's really freaky and surreal.
-
People shout out for songs and I don't even remember writing them.
-
A lot of my friends are doctors, and the difference between me and them is there's no musical emergencies to pull me away from dinner. 'I need the chords for that song right now!' No, it can wait.
-
Myself, I'm just a simple country boy who spent time on the streets and developed a style of writing and rapping and a cool sound that people seem to enjoy.
-
The funny thing about writing is I think a lot of people assume that you're sitting in a garret with a quill pen for hour after hour.
-
I can sort of will that stuff to happen to me if I put myself in the right headspace. Then I can actually get to a space where it won't just be one song that comes through, but a series of them.
-
They shouldn't call death passing on. They should call it leveling up. Because the game only got harder once I lost. And I was more than a little worried it had only just begun.
-
But everything written has style. The list of ingredients on the side of a cornflakes box has style. And everything literary has literary style. And style is integral to a work. How something is told correlates with - more - makes what's being told. A story is its style.
-
When I began writing songs, there was a pretty direct line between what was happening in my life and what I wrote about. So my first album was really all about my failed attempts to make a particular relationship work.
