Rivers Cuomo Quotes

I think good artists know when they're on a roll, and they recognize when lightning is striking. It's a very fortunate thing to have that inspiration and not to overanalyze it or mess with it; you just follow it if you love what you do.

Every day you can write a song but some days there is just some magic in the air and something special about the catch; other days you write all day on a song line or idea.

In all fields of creativity you see the result of work that has become habit. Where the creative impulse has become flaccid or has died out altogether, and yet because it is our work and our life we continue to do it.

Writing, for me, is very inspiration-dependent. And inspiration can be a jerk.

We all have fertile creative periods and times when we can't figure out how we ever did it.

Whenever I finish a movie, I usually go through a period where I think I'll never have another idea. And then, somehow, you get another idea.

I never allowed writer's block to be a reality. I framed it up for myself early on. I said, 'OK, if I'm not writing, the well is just filling up. I'm going to be patient with this.'

I really admire songwriters or any kind of writer, painter or artist that says, "I'm going to get up at 8 o'clock in the morning and spend this time to this time creating." I do that sometimes, but the songs I like the best come as gifts from somewhere. It's almost like you didn't do anything, like you can't take credit for it because you sat down and the melody and words came out.

Apparently one impression we are making... is that creativeness consists of lightning striking you on the head in one great glorious moment.

You can't really do anything creative without a source of inspiration.

When I'm writing, I write. And then it's as if the muse is convinced that I'm serious and says, 'Okay. Okay. I'll come.'

The toughest question has always been, "How do you get your ideas?" How do you answer that? It's like asking runners how they run, or singers how they sing. They just do it!

People who are creative, who do it as a lifestyle, it's kind of silly to make that claim you're done, because you just never know when that spark is going to hit you again. You can't necessarily predict how you're going to feel. In ten years I'll be 58, and I might still feel like making a punk record.

When inspiration does not come, I go for a walk, go to the movie, talk to a friend, let go... The muse is bound to return again, especially if I turn my back!

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

I consider creativity to be a more non-rational, subconscious thing. You have a relationship to your creativity - you can feed it with content, with some rational prodding and sleep and things like that, but the mechanisms by which your creativity work are largely unknown.

The creative habit is like a drug. The particular obsession changes, but the excitement, the thrill of your creation lasts.

I write a chapter, then edit it and edit it and edit it and edit it. I don't think we mine creativity from within. It's bestowed from on high, from God.

Usually, I create tunes that are fragmented. I think the biggest obstacle for people with their creativity is that they feel they have to sit down and create this finished, polished product.

Writing is a funny thing. It's not like you're working on a schedule. It comes in fits and starts.

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

Inspiration is an awakening, a quickening of all man's faculties, and it is manifested in all high artistic achievements.

I just get an idea and then all of a sudden I've got a song.

Every mind which has given itself to self-expression in art is aware of a directing agency outside its conscious control which it has agreed to label 'inspiration'.

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.