Synyster Gates Quotes

As a writer, you're really in control of almost everything. That's not the case in TV. You have to be prepared to work with a lot of people to make something happen, and you got to be prepared, at least in the beginning, to not be too good at your specific task.

Yeah, we have our differences, but we put those aside, and now we're making music. It's great.

It's not easy working with your husband, I'll be straight up about that. But when we work together, we always get great product. It's not easy in the process and as we go along it gets easier, but yeah, it gets a little sticky.

I've worked with a lot of people on music and often times those things don't work out.

Writers, actors, anybody working on an ensemble-type thing, there are going to be some creaks in the beginning. It seems like there's tremendous potential in just letting things sort of breathe a little bit. It's tremendously important.

There was a time in my career when my hackles would really get raised if someone came in and said, 'We need you to do this or that.' But the fact of the matter is, you're working in a shared universe, and all elements of the universe are, ideally, going to mesh and work together. That's my goal. I want to be on the team.

It's more important to fly midpoint in deals and work together than to try to haggle for the last dollar.

I love to be the lead, but you can't always be the lead.

You don't compromise principles, but you harmonize tactics to preserve unity.

I've found it really hard to finish writing songs when you're writing on not just your schedule but somebody else's.

With Mobb Deep, we have to agree on things. We have to agree that we want to use that beat or agree on the type of song we want to do.

I've got my own mind, and I'll talk about it, but I'm willing to listen. I'm very balanced like that. If you don't want a guy who's balanced, who wants to win, and can bring people together well... I don't know.

I write songs, but the guys play on them, they have opinions on them, and we tour together and spend all our time together.

In the past, being young, I might have been standoffish to working with other songwriters.

There are very few things in real life on which I agree with Jeremy Clarkson, surprisingly few for people who have to make a TV show together. But that's part of what makes it work.

Naturally, in a band or duo, it's really about compromise which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

My fine friends who are perfectionists, each in their own world where they are petty dictators, could write a perfect bill. Those of us who have grown up and matured...understand that we have to work together on the big issues.

Cooperation - To get cooperation, you must give cooperation. Always seek to find the best way rather than insisting on your own way.

It's not all about getting your own way. Sometimes there's a bigger picture.

The lesson you have to learn as novelist is how to be collaborative, and how to say, "I don't get to dictate this."

I think... you know, collaboration, in general - no matter movies, television or Broadway - is offering of what you can bring to the table and also fighting what you think the important battles are. Not everything is going to make it in there. Not everything is going to work. You have to collaborate. And you have to be a good listener.

When you're songwriting, it's like talking about your own life experience. When you're with a band, you have to compromise.

I put all those synthesizer sounds behind "Decoy" and "Code M.D." A lot of things we write together. A lot of things are his, but they don't have that thing I want on the bottom. I often tell him, I say, "Bobby [Irving], if there's a melody, there's another one somewhere that goes with it."

It's funny, I think after you are a star like Sting and you no longer think you need any guidance or aid - it would be great to see those stars work with other songwriters.

There always comes a moment where all the departments in a film need to work together. And if a director, his first assistant director, and cinematographer have a very clear vision, then everybody does work together.