MNEK Quotes

My advice would be not to write until after 35. You need some experience, and for life to knock you about a bit. Growing up is so hard you probably won't have much emotion to spare anyway.

I think you get better as you get older.

Just as you get older, you gain more experiences, you see more things.

There are things that you write when you're 20 and there are things that you write when you're 40 and then there are things that you write when you're old.

I don't know if it's that the scripts are evolving or just that I'm getting older, but the characters become more interesting as you get older because you've lived more life at different stages. You've loved; you've lost; you have more of that journey.

People mature with age and experience. I hope I more resemble a fine wine than bad vinegar.

Its not age as much as the experiences I have had.

I suspect I was not the first 21-year-old who thought he knew more than he did. And one of the virtues of age, one of the virtues of getting married and becoming a father, is it often leads one to take a more measured approach to life.

I'm beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

When I turned 45, I lay in bed reflecting on all life had taught me. My soul sprang a leak and ideas flowed out. My pen simply caught them and set the words on paper. I typed them up and turned them into a newspaper column of the 45 lessons life taught me. When I hit 50, I added five more lessons and the paper ran the column again.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

I think that between 27 and 37 was a really big learning decade.

I've become a lot wiser over the years.

You have to grow up, and you learn things along the way.

It's so much more interesting having life under your belt.

My life experience has made me realise what's important and what is not.

I put all my big revelations into songs when I was in my 20s; as you get older, revelations are harder to come by.

With time, you do get mature.

As I grow older, I like to think I'm getting a little bit more mature.

I've seen a lot of things and I've experienced a lot of things.

People grow up by living.

I've experienced a lot for someone my age that a lot of people will be able to relate to.

Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

One wouldn't want to have the same dilemmas at 50 as one had at 15. And indeed I don't. I have a very different take on life.

What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.