Shawn Colvin Quotes

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

Anything well written with good language and clarity and honesty is worth doing. It comes out of the same tradition as Shakespeare.

I found out a long time ago that if I didn't have a good story for a song, I could just make one up! Now it seems over half the stories in my show are made up. The funny thing is, those seem to be the ones that resonate the most with the audiences.

I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.

The quality of the writing, really. Simple as that. Beautiful words. It's very nice as a singer to do great songs, which have wonderful lyrics and strong feelings underneath the song.

The hardest thing to teach young writers is that it's wonderful to tell your truth. And that's what you should do. But it damn well better be beautiful.

When you write a song, the goal is not to convey the details of your life. You should write a memoir or something if that's what you're going to do.

Lyrics are kind of the whole thing; it's the message. Something might have a beautiful melody but if it's not the truth coming out of your mouth, it's not appealing.

If you're somebody who writes songs or writes fiction, a writer that people pay for your opinion in any way, you shouldn't be the least bit uncomfortable giving it to them. People want songwriters to tell them how they think and how they feel. That's what a song is. That's what I want to hear in a song.

Deep feeling doesn't make for good poetry. A way with language would be a bit of help.

If you give me a typewriter and I'm having a good day, I can write a scene that will astonish its readers. That will perhaps make them laugh, perhaps make them cry - that will have some emotional clout to it. It doesn't cost much to do that.

The words of the songs speak for themselves.

I've always wanted to be a songwriter and a storyteller and somebody who conveys a feeling to the listener or the viewer.

A lot of people feel that the realm of poetry and the realm of the lyric is personal feeling and should rise above politics, which, in fact, good poetry has never done.

I guess I'm trying to write stuff that I, as a viewer, would connect to.

Tell the story that's in your heart, and don't hold back. Write a book the reader will want to melt into.

One of your jobs as a speechwriter is to transform the bureaucratic into the poetic.

I may not be as lyrically adept as Jay-Z and Morrissey, but at least I can sing what I feel.

I try to make statements that aren't broad because that doesn't make for good writing. I don't get commentary as my job, because I'm not very good at that. The way I do it is by writing songs, and I have to be small; I have to make the stories a bit personal.

You can fake a lot of stuff, but you can't fake if the story isn't there and if the writing isn't good.

I think, with music, I'm a lyricist who talks about real life things.

Most of the things I sing in my songs, I've lived.

I want people to really recognize that this is what I am naturally good at: I'm really good at making music and describing your feelings vicariously through my experiences, through my past and my future. I want people to relate to me in multiple ways and be versatile in my music.

Good writing isn’t a science. It’s an art, and the horizon is infinite. You can always get better.

Writing good dialogue is art as well as craft.