Paul Simon Quotes

Songwriters can’t explain. You get an idea and you don’t know where it’s come from. And if you’re lucky, you have a pencil or pen and can write it down.

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

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.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

When I wrote 'Grand Illusion,' I was making it up as we went along. I wrote this stuff and tried to do the best job I could.

I don't find the songs; they find me. I just strum my guitar and wait for a lyric to come.

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.

I imagine that when I am creating a song or a project or an album or putting some clothing together or cooking a meal, whatever it is, I don't really have a recipe. The fun part is to throw that big piece of clay in the middle of the table as hard as I can, and whatever shape it takes, that's what shape it takes, and then I start to carve away.

How does a person create a song? A lot of it is being open to encounter and to be in touch with the miraculous.

A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.

It varies, I don't think there is any one set way of writing songs or coming up with ideas, it comes in so many ways you know.

I don't freestyle, but when I'm writing and thinking, sometimes things pop up - that's basically a freestyle.

Composing is a slowed-down improvisation; often one cannot write fast enough to keep up with the stream of ideas.

When I'm recording, which is synonymous with writing, I'll play things over and over again until it sounds like I've got the right guitar part. Whereas I think, as the much younger player I tended to do things much more consciously. I didn't wait for the moment where inspiration might strike. That's what I do now. I wait for it to naturally start to replay itself in my mind. As I say, I don't force it. So I like to think of myself as a receiver. I'm a telephone line to who knows where, but until I hear it through that receiver, I don't usually do it. It's got to start writing itself somehow.

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!

I write a little something every day, even though I don't write a song [every day]. Everything inspires me. I'll come up with a line, or somebody will say something that will trigger something.

I always say, and I truly believe this, that my work is three steps ahead of me. I have an idea for something and I tend to feel like it's leading me and I'll follow the process through, and it's not until after I've seen it that I truly understand why I'm doing this.

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

I'm dependent on writing for a living, so really it's to my advantage to understand how the creative process works. One of the problems is, when you start to do that, in effect you're going to have to step off the edge of science and rationality.

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.

I sometimes don't try to invent something. I wait for some kind of a direction - and it happens. I get an angle, for instance, and it just appears, and I say, 'Oh my God - that's it!'

I almost literally wake up in the morning starting to think of my next idea. It's almost always driven by what's in the news. The hard part, really, is getting from knowing what I want to say to figuring out how to say it in an image. I'm still not entirely sure how to explain how that happens... Suddenly, something just works.

I do not 'get' ideas; ideas get me.

You can't rush inspiration.

I don't think we ever really think about it when we're doing it, because if you sort of go in with a plan of attack, it tends to take away the natural rhythm of songwriting.