Devin Townsend Quotes

I let the song come to me. Then that thing comes to you, and you just know what that thing is. Music isn't like a 9-to-5 job. You never know. It's just the most unpredictable thing.

If you over-think, it affects things too much; I work instinctively, like painting in a way. Think too much, and you ruin everything.

I don't make judgments about my own work, and I don't analyze it; I just let it happen. That applies to everything I've done.

The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

People think the Beatles know what's going on. We don't. We're just doing it.

I get a sentence, an idea, an image, and I start. I don't know anything beyond it. I follow it.

U2's best work has always been when we didn't know what we're doing.

Although idea and form are ultimately paramount in my work, so too are chance, accident, and rawness.

I think there's one thing which distinguishes our art - we don't consider. We don't think. We write a little verse because it comes to us.

I think good artists know when they're on a roll, and they recognize when lightning is striking. It's a very fortunate thing to have that inspiration and not to overanalyze it or mess with it; you just follow it if you love what you do.

You don't know what inspires you. You like to think you know what inspires you, but in the final analysis I don't think you really do. It's great to look at a blank sheet of paper, you know, and walk up to an instrument and not know what's gonna happen. It's the most challenging thing I do.

I start each book when it's ready and never before.

I think you always have to go as an artist with instinct, I really do.

Artwork is not like a commercial business; there is no such thing as a schedule for art. You can't hurry art.

Any song I have to work on longer than a day, I just leave it. It's not gonna work. Everything that's good is really instant.

I've never sat down and tried to write something for some occasion. You just write the tune and stay totally wide open to everything. It'll find the person or persons who are supposed to do it.

The muse holds no appointments. You can never call on it. I don't understand people who get up at 9 o'clock in the morning, put on the coffee and sit down to write.

I really like to experiment. That's the only way I can work. It's instinctive.

The artist discards all theories, both his own and those of others. He forgets everything when he is in front of his canvas.

The actual writing of a song usually comes in the form of a realisation. I can't contrive a song.

Many times, working is kind of like channeling, and I really don't know what's going to fall on the page. I just did this image of a fat girl and put her on a tiny mountain peak of grass that she's walking over. It just amused me.

The more you think, the more you ruin things. Art has to come viscerally; otherwise, forget it.

And I don't have any specific steps to take because I don't start the same way every time. But there is a knowing when it's enough and you can leave it alone.

My work is on the one hand laboured, and on the other completely happenstance and intuitive.

Now to consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the products of reflection.