Astrid S Quotes

I try not to be overly literal. When I'm writing songs, I write down a lot of words, and then I try to simplify it. I like to give people hints or words that make visual pictures for them.

I wrote poetry before I wrote songs, and T.S. Eliot was my inspiration. I love his honesty and try to bring that to my own songwriting.

It's like these ideas, these characters, kind of bubble up inside me, and one day they're not there, and the next day they are there. They're alive, and they're whispering in my head and all that stuff, and I want to write about those things.

People have asked me a lot, 'What comes first? The pictures or the story? The story or the picture?' It's hard to describe because often they seem to come at the same time. I'm seeing images while I'm thinking of the story.

I work on words, mostly, toward them being poetry or short stories, and then some of those become songs. They all find their place in the world, but they all start off in the same place. I'm always painting and drawing as well, and it's an ongoing creative assignment.

I think artists should really write more.

For me, the source material can come from anywhere. It can be a poem, it can be a dream, it can be a movie, as long as the end part of it is interesting - that's what it's about for me.

Writing songs has always been hard and easy. It's not always easy when you want it to be, and then sometimes it's just like turning on the faucet. That's just the nature of it.

I have these huge black foam boards on the wall, and tacked to them, I have these white punch cards with my story ideas, scenes and notes.

When I see things that are inspiring, I must write a song about it. Some people make a t-shirt or slap something on a wall with paint, but I must make music and freestyle rap.

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.

I sit down and draw from my lyric book. I sit down and start looking through it and see if there is anything that strikes me that I've written.

It's not like I wake up and songs flow out of me.

Some people take pictures; I write songs.

When I do write, it happens really easily. I'll just kind of sing along to whatever I'm playing, then find a line to build off of, then sit down and write. When I do write, I take care of business!

I'm the guy that gets up at three in the morning to jot down an entire sheet of lyrics for something that won't be recorded for six months. You have to get it down when you can, because thoughts are fluid.

What's funny about that is when I was writing Twilight just for myself and not thinking of it as a book, I was not thinking about publishing, and yet at the same time I was casting it in my head. Because when I read books, I see them very visually.

It's a real gift to be able to have the works of brilliant, great people to learn from and build from. It gives you so much more to draw on, and then you don't have to be all about three-chord pop songs. I don't really like that kind of writing.

I try and make little stories. Whether it's with a pencil or with bits of records, it's really the same thing.

Writing is such a strange, utterly mysterious process. First, there was nothing; then, suddenly, there was something. I don't know where thoughts are born. Where the hell does it come from? I don't know. I really don't know.

I don't want to wear my compositional tools on my sleeve.

Naturally, I've always felt more like a writer myself, and I've always written. I have people who are writers who've been promoting that side of me. I also draw, too. Those things I feel most comfortable in.

When it comes to lyrics, I just write down a lot of things, and only a very tiny fraction of it, I think, is any good.

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

I do not go in search of poetry. I wait for poetry to visit me.