Paul Stanley Quotes

The great songs just come out. If it comes quick, just leave it that way.

I try never to focus on the radio, just find great songs, find emotion and just write the best songs you can. I think when you get fixated on trying to do something too accurate, it becomes more washed out and less what you intended it to be. So I think each time the challenge for me is to try and reinvent a little bit.

When I get into the studio, it's not about trying to get a good song, it's about whatever comes naturally.

I tend not to have any references to anything. I just jump into the script in front of me. If you reference too much, you have no idea if the performances are right.

I'm a great believer in the beauty and the power of surprise.

When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.

To be a great artist, you need to know yourself as best as you possibly can. I live my life and delve into my own psyche. It's more about exploring how I feel rather than making pale imitations of something that came before. We are unique beings, and the way we look at things is our own.

I try not to intellectualise what I do.

Don't try to follow any trends, just concentrate on writing great songs and knowing your instrument. All the other stuff will fall into place.

There is only one true thing: instantly paint what you see. When you've got it, you've got it. When you haven't, you begin again. All the rest is humbug.

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

I don't like to over-intellectualize scenes that are working. I tend to think when you do that you may lose it.

I just write the stuff I want to at the time, what feels right for me.

If I get a song - a good song - I just sing it the way I hear it in my head. If anybody else wanted to add whistles and bells and chains rattling, that's fine. Just not too much. I actually just do things as straight ahead as possible.

I write songs as honestly as I can without worrying about genres or labels. Sometimes I sing, and sometimes I rap, and sometimes I do something in between. I jump around on stage and don't care too much about how I look. I try to be myself even though I'm still figuring myself out.

It's gotta feel natural. I'm always into that, and after awhile, if I am working on a song too long and trying to make something out of it that it's not... it's best just to stop and move on.

I must admit, I don't try to put my stamp on anything; it just happens. I don't really know how to think another way.

I don't even really try to do something different. I just do what's authentic to me.

I just sit down and write the best song for the best moment, and however it comes out, it is what it is.

I would like [the working man] to give me back books and newspapers and theories. And I would like to give him back, in return, his old insouciance, and rich, original spontaneity and fullness of life.

Anything you are shows up in your music - jazz is whatever you are, playing yourself, being yourself, letting your thoughts come through.

The main things to rebel against - over-production, too much technology, overthinking. It's a spoiled mentality; everything is too easy. If you want to record a song, you can buy Pro Tools and record four hundred guitar tracks. That leads to overthinking, which kills any spontaneity and the humanity of the performance.

It's that same quality I've been talking about. It's neither contrived, nor surprising and smart, not baffling, not witty, not interesting, not cynical, it can't be planned and it probably can't even be described. It's just good.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing up there half the time. These performers that go on about their technique and craft - oh, puleeze! How boring! I don't know what technique means. But I do know what experience is. I know in my gut when I've done a scene right.

Jack Kerouac was cool because he had no idea he was.