Amos Lee Quotes

Every time I write something down I check it to see if it has that telltale glow, the glow that tells me there's something there. If it glows, it stays. Everything is either on or off.

Do as many ideas as possible. The right idea will pick you.

Music was not invented by the composer, but found.

Ironically, being a coach on 'The Voice' and spending time with those kids, Xenia and Dia especially, I learned a lot about myself. It reminded me how lucky I am that this happened for me, and it kind of lit the spark inside me again for my love of music.

I let the song come to me. Then that thing comes to you, and you just know what that thing is. Music isn't like a 9-to-5 job. You never know. It's just the most unpredictable thing.

I think making a movie or a record, the best things happen by accident - and those end up being the magic. Every time I've followed my gut it's been better than when I've tried to do what I was supposed to do.

We all love to sing, and when we sit down to write a song I think it kind of shows itself to us.

We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.

I write songs, and I sing them. I never formulated a plan; I can't tell anyone else how to do this. But it feels right, so I just kind of enjoy it and get on with it.

I just consider being one of the luckiest people in the sense that creativity came to me and it flowed.

I've become a workaholic. When the shows slow down and there's no press and I can get my time to myself in the studio with my music, I get into this zone, man. I enter this incredible space where I'm just making music. And I feel like I can work with anybody - with Elton John, with Hanson - and I can make something incredible.

It's been fun. I've had a lucky life. Art has made me pull the best out of myself.

Painting is not for me either decorative amusement, or the plastic invention of felt reality; it must be every time: invention, discovery, revelation.

I guess I'd love to be surprised by something I had never thought of.

Innovation is serendipity, so you don't know what people will make.

Every time I sit for a song, I feel I am finished. It's like a beggar sitting waiting for God to fill your bowl with the right thought. In every song, I ask help from Him. Everybody around is so good, so to create music that will connect with so many people is not humanly possible without inspiration.

The more I do in my life, the more I can write music about new experiences.

All good ideas arrive by chance.

People ask what was the first piece of music I wrote. There was no first piece.

I have trusted to my intuition to find the subjects, and I have written intuitively. I have an idea when I start, I have a shape; but I will fully understand what I have written only after some years.

My songwriting process, and maybe loads of other people's, is just this sort of smashing together of emotions and stuff to make some music. It's kind of simple and really complex at the same time and, as you can see, incredibly hard to explain.

When you're playing such brilliant music every day, then the last thing you ever want to do is try to write something of your own that's crude and not as good.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

My insights come in periods of working. There are wonderful moments of surprise, but I'm superstitious enough not to want to talk about them.

Composers shouldn't think too much - it interferes with their plagiarism.