Tyler Hilton Quotes

I would find myself laughing and wondering where these ideas came from. You can call it imagination, I suppose. But I was grateful for wherever they came from.

It's gotta feel natural. I'm always into that, and after awhile, if I am working on a song too long and trying to make something out of it that it's not... it's best just to stop and move on.

When I'm writing [songs], some days the pen just goes. I'm not in charge and I'm almost listening outside of it. That's when I realize that we all have to start looking at life as a gift. It's like listening to a color and believing that these colors have soul mates and once you get them all together the painting is complete.

There's no way to learn how to write a hit song. There's no formula for it. You just have to have it inside of you.

Sometimes I think creativity is magic; it's not a matter of finding an idea, but allowing the idea to find you.

Of course creativity is a mystery. We don't know what drives it or what constitutes it. It's one of those things, like genius, you know it when you see it but it's impossible to define.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

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.

When I finished a song that I thought was good, I thought, I don't know where that came from, so I have no idea if I can do that again. I'm talking like, a hundred and fifty songs down the line. I still feel that.

There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.

Some of the best songs I've written, I've written in 10 minutes.

My goal is to think of nothing when I'm writing a song because too many influences could sabotage a potentially amazing song.

I'm definitely using different parts of myself, but I think when it comes down to words and melodies, I can't really force anything too much.

The most important ingredient to making a song work is the magic. You've got a melody, you've got words, but on the more successful songs, there's a sort of magic glow that just happens and you can feel it happening. It just makes the songs sort of roll out.

What happens a lot with songwriting is that a melody or rhythm or something stays with you like catching a cold. And during that time what happens is that I can then fit things on to it, it all fits and glues together. Sometimes it's crazy cos it can almost be anything. But if you catch the cold then the nonsense makes sense. It's like you're getting beamed it, like with a ouija board and something's pushing your hand. It's not a pleasant experience necessarily.

Song ideas have come to me in the middle of interviews, in the shower, or while I'm writing another song.

Great writers create; writers of smaller gifts copy

When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, Ill write it.

There's nothing like the eureka moment of knocking off a song that didn't exist before - I won't compare it to sex, but it lasts longer.

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!

Talent works, genius creates.

What a fine line there is between artistry and insanity. There's no formula for it, and I think a lot of people when they're around you - even those closest to you - when you're in that whirl of creativity and you're grabbing those things out of the air, there's no rational process.

Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes.

I can't legislate a song into being; it just will not happen for me.