Prince Quotes

The critics are not writers - they're not a part of the creative process; therefore, they should not influence how I go about doing my next bit of work.

I don't sit down to write a country song. I don't sit down to write a rap song. I just sit down to write a song, you know what I mean? And I try to make that song the best it can be.

I don't consciously sit down thinking I'm blurring genre lines, for the most part. I try to stay focused solely on serving the needs of the particular story on which I'm working.

I'm a big proponent of letting songs tell me what they wanna sound like.

A song is no song unless the circumstance is free and fine. If a singer sing from a sense of duty or from seeing no way to escape,I had rather have none. Those only can sleep who do not care to sleep; and those only write or speak best who do not too much respect the writing or the speaking.

I'm kind of lucky in the fact that I can take something that's in my head and write it down, or I can listen to a piece of music that somebody else has written and try to tap into what the music's saying and just kind of follow that, you know. I mean, nine times out of 10, I'm just kind of following where the music takes me.

I think about everything first. I think about the scenario: the story and the characters, what I'm trying to say and I'll think about that for a couple of days until it's all locked in and then when I get to an instrument it'll just fall out. But the song's kind of all ready there in my head.

When I was writing 'Shotgun,' it's one of the first songs that's come to me as an image.

Any band that is out there chasing it is doing more destruction to music then someone who is out there playing what they truly feel.

I don't want to sell my soul to Hollywood - to just make run-of-the-mill stuff.

As a novelist, you have to be free. Books can't be an act of filial duty.

As I say, the Animals had a particular concept of themselves as a band. There was an anarchic spirit in it, which was being flattened by commercial designs, attitudes, and needs.

I don't sit down and say I'm going to write a song about this or that. They are never mapped out.

I like my drawings to be direct. I don't generally work on them for too long, but that doesn't mean that they are not works in their own right.

There's many, many ways to write a song. But generally, sitting down at a table and writing is not one of them.

The way that I've always gone about making music, the rule of thumb, has just been to make what I love.

I'm not going to put out a Christmas CD until it's coming out of me naturally.

I find it very hard to sit down and create an idea or especially a new character on command. Usually my characters evolve by accident out of some story context.

When I sit down to write, I don't think, 'OK, what is the next David O. Russell film I can write, or what is Harvey Weinstein going to want to buy?' Or even, 'What are filmgoers going to want.' I try to think, tell a good story. Just do what you do.

I don't think about the styles. I write whatever comes out and I use whatever kind of instrumentation works for those songs.

I like to reserve the right to write about whatever I like.

I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.

Regardless of the medium, be it television or feature or documentary, I'm not gonna distinguish and worry about my particular canon, whatever that means.

The goal is always just to write the best song that you can write. I mean, the process for writing a song is the process for writing a song. It's not something I look at it as something I need to do something different.

As an artist, I understand that, and I value the creative input of the artist.