Stephen Sondheim Quotes

I've always been in bands writing songs with friends in order to play shows or record a future record.

Writing a song is actually quite easy. Writing a good one is very, very difficult.

I try to read a lot and listen to a lot of good songwriters, and I try to actually work on the craft of writing a song rather than just leaving it up to inspiration.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I'd just write.

As a songwriter, I go into the studio, and I just try to write a great song.

I'm blessed, because I enjoy every part of my life. I enjoy writing songs. I've been trying to write songs since I was five years old.

There are certainly a lot of people - and I won't name names - who are getting by simply on expression. And I guess that's valuable in some sense. But songs are not better just because they're emotionally honest. To write a song well, you have to put some work into it and grind it out.

You always want to write the perfect song. But no one will ever write the perfect song, I guess. I would just like to write on that has all the elements of what I'm tring to do. And I'm working on it. I'm always working on it.

I would always write lyrics and songs on the piano.

I do write. I actually do want to start my music as well. My sister and I are starting a band. I've been playing a guitar for nine years, and she plays piano, and we sing together. We're going to start up something soon. I mostly am writing songs right now actually, but I would love to write a script someday.

Being a songwriter is really the base of being an artist, for me.

Once I've written a song, I sometimes refine them.

The goal is to try and make the perfect song. Which of course will never happen.

My main thing is just to keep writing. I've been doing some songwriting that's for my own record, I suppose.

I mean Gorilla was really our first sort of goes at songwriting.

I've been a list maker for years, even before I was a musician. I was always writing things down and kept long lists of things that would make good album titles and things like that. I'm constantly thinking in terms of songwriting.

I dream about singing. I would love to sing and write.

Music has always been a huge passion in my life. I've just had such success with my acting that it's really been right alongside of it, and I've always been writing and playing and singing.

There's a saying, 'It's easy to write songs, but very difficult to write great songs.' I'm going through that right now.

Growing up in Memphis and listening to all kinds of music and dreaming... So that was one of the first times I wrote a complete song and set it to music and the whole bit. From then on, I was busy with it.

The fact that my songs take a long time to write is no guarantee of their excellence.

I think I was 15 the first time I wrote a good song.

I've always loved both writing and songwriting. The journey is fascinating to me.

If you want to be a songwriter, you've got to obsess over it.

It was actually working with Kendrick Lamar that pushed me further into the act of songwriting, specifically.