Spike Jonze Quotes

In some ways, the more that I write songs, the more I feel that telling a story is the most important thing; just being able to close your eyes when you hear some lyrics and go somewhere.

I don't know how it is for people who write fiction or literature, but for me, when I'm writing music, especially with this album, I felt compelled to hold up my end of the conversation. I want people to connect deeper with it.

I love knowing that people are connecting to my lyrics, my music and me.

It's true, there's a lot of melancholy in my music. I don't know why, I'm not a melancholy person. I've always been drawn to it. Ever since I was a kid, if I had an album I would play the ballads on repeat.

With contemporary music, you automatically get connected. It connects you to the emotion of the characters.

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.

Music should be able to invoke the natural emotions in all human beings. Music is not notes fixed on apiece of paper.

It excites me when a person puts their whole self in a song or rhyme, or instrument. It fills me.

I enjoyed hearing people do their own songs. I became attracted to singer-songwriters. I became interested in them as people; was curious about what they wanted to say.

When I listen to a song, I don't say, 'Oh my gosh, that vocal line she sang was the best thing I ever heard.' I'm thinking, 'That lyric just moves me. That lyric just said what I feel better than I could say it myself.'

I'm usually really drawn to a song, and I know it would be good to cover if it sounds like something that I could write, or I wished I could write. Sometimes a writer just sounds like they're in your head, and that is really cool for me.

Every song I've ever written always starts with the words because I want the music to be the musical extension of the feelings of the words, and not the words being the emotional extension of the feeling of the music.

Music is essentially an emotional language, so you want to feel something from the relationships and build music based on those feelings.

I'm the type of artist who touches people, that's the type of artist that I am.

I think the thing that has made it possible for me to write personal songs and sing them year after year is the sensibility for good writing. Just opening your veins all over the paper is not necessarily going to be interesting. I wanted to speak to people.

I was touched by the magic of music. My way to communicate was through my guitar and music.

I think Usher is a bonafide superstar because he's very honest in his songs, and people can relate to that, especially in the feelings and textures of his voice. He is one of the best.

There's something in music that fascinates me - how it communicates emotion so immediately. That's something I wanted in my paintings.

I like rap. I like anything with soul. I like anything you can feel, anything that makes you think that the artist had to make that song, or they were going to go crazy.

Whenever you write music, you want it to touch people on a certain level. I mean, I've been reading tweets about 'Troublemaker' and people saying 'OMG, I can so relate to this - this is a guy that I fancy, or a girl that I fancy; it's exactly like this person.'

It's been an objective of mine since I started writing songs to include both intellect and energy.

'Hatful of Hollow' and 'The Smiths' were lent to me, and they made me want to create music that might make another person feel like they made me feel - to have an effect on someone.

The main objective in any song, the songs that I write, has always been that it reflect the way I feel, that it touch me when I'm finished with it, that it moves me, that it can take me along with it and involve me in what its saying.

As a songwriter, that's really what you hope for - to make that connection with your audience.

To me, using music is creating a shorthand with an audience. And I love music so much.