One of my realizations is that if you revel over joy, you're going to ache over pain and get killed over hurt. Your span of feelings are going to go just as far one way as the other.
Chuck BerryRead
Everything I wrote about wasn't about me, but about the people listening.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of considering the audience and their experiences rather than focusing solely on the self.
Chuck Berry's quote reflects the idea that art and expression should resonate with others. By stating that his writing was not about himself but about the listeners, he highlights the role of empathy in creating meaningful connections through music and storytelling. This perspective encourages artists to go beyond their personal narratives and engage with the collective experiences and emotions of their audience, fostering a sense of community and shared understanding.
Themes
AudienceExpressionConnectionEmpathyArt
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the power of music, this quote can be used to illustrate how artists connect with their audience.
More from Chuck Berry
All quotes βRock is my child and my grandfather.
Chuck BerryRead
In the Fifties, there were certain places we couldn't ride on the bus, and now there is a possibility of a black man being in the White House. You have to feel good about it.
Chuck BerryRead
I directed my music to the teen-agers. I was 30 years old when I did 'Maybellene.' My school days had long been over when I did 'School Day,' but I was thinking of them.
Chuck BerryRead
Hail, hail rock and roll / Deliver me from the days of old.
Chuck BerryRead
I wanted to play blues. But I wasn't blue enough. I wasn't like Muddy Waters, people who really had it hard. In our house, we had food on the table. We were doing well compared to many. So I concentrated on this fun and frolic, these novelties.
Chuck BerryRead
Similar quotes
I am so afraid of people's words.They describe so distinctly everything: And this they call dog and that they call house, here the start and there the end. I worry about their mockery with words, they know everything, what will be, what was; no mountain is still miraculous; and their house and yard lead right up to God. I want to warn and object: Let the things be! I enjoy listening to the sound they are making. But you always touch: and they hush and stand still. That's how you kill.
Rainer Maria RilkeRead
Comic books, movies, radio programmes centered their entertainment around the fact of torture. With the clearest of consciences, with a patriotic intensity, children dreamed, talked, acted orgies of physical abuse. Imaginations were released to wander on a reconnaissance mission from Cavalry to Dachau. European children starved and watched their parents scheme and die. Here we grew up with toy whips. Early warning against our future leaders, the war babies.
Leonard CohenRead
Racism is a belief system. It was assembled over centuries from many component parts - bits of biblical scripture, the propaganda of the slave-owning lobby and the pseudo-science of academics working in universities in Europe and America.
David OlusogaRead
To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity; the next is, to strive, and deserve to conquer: but he whose life has passed without a contest, and who can boast neither success nor merit, can survey himself only as a useless filler of existence; ad if he is content with his own character, must owe his satisfaction to insensibility.
Samuel JohnsonRead
The elevation of parochial values to the realm of the sacred is a license to dismiss other people's interests, and an imperative to reject the possibility of compromise
Steven PinkerRead
To live for a principle, for the triumph of some reform by which all mankind are to be lifted up to be wedded to an idea may be, after all, the holiest and happiest of marriages.
Elizabeth Cady StantonRead