It takes two years to make a good film.
It takes so much energy and time to make one song perfect.
What one has most to work and struggle for in painting is to do the work with a great amount of labour and sweat in such a way that it may afterward appear, however much it was laboured upon, to have been done almost quickly and almost without any labour, and very easily, although it was not.
Lyrics are really, really hard, I think, or at least they're really hard for me. Some people can channel lyrics faster. I find them very hard to find, so because of it, they take me a long time, and I really think about them.
I deliberate over the lyrics; I really do. I'll come up with one line in a day, and then it might be a couple of days before I come up with the rhyming line. It's never been easy for me.
Novel writing is far and away the most exhausting work I know.
It's not easy putting creative projects together. In my case, it might take a long time and you try to do the best.
I kind of like polishing the songs that I'm working on. I'm really working hard on some specific songs.
People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to compositions as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.
People will reach out because they know I'm trying to put my best forward when it comes to subject matter and creation of song.
However long the song is was how long it took us to write it.
To actually put the time and energy into an album that would be better than Pull would be a hell of a lot of work, because I took that band really seriously, way more seriously than people took us. If you go back and listen to the records, you can hear it.
I want people to appreciate all the time and effort that I put into my art and my music.
A song just doesn't come on. I've always had to tease it out, squeeze it out.
I've had mixtapes that have been better than albums I've heard from other artists. I take my time; I put my heart into it.
I usually do about five drafts per rhyme for each song.
Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven't been made easier technically.
To create great work, here's how you must spend your time: 1% Inspiration 9% Perspiration 90% Justification
I'm still fighting really hard to get any role I get. If it's comedy, I go for the laughs. And if it's drama, I try to tell the truth, and try to play the real stakes of whatever scenario the character's in.
It would be a big mistake to think that Chekhov was a natural, that he did not have to work for his effects and singular style.
There's not a lot of thinking that I need to do away from the studio on Broken Bells stuff.
There is nothing harder to learn than painting and nothing which most people take less trouble about learning. An art school is a place where about three people work with feverish energy and everybody else idles to a degree that I should have conceived unattainable by human nature.
Such a divine profession is art! When everything else looks so stale and disgustingly vacuous, so enthralls even the littlest real effort of art our innermost and carries us from town, from country, from earth, as that it must be truely a blessing of the Gods.
If I'm producing, I'm not acting, and it's such a long road to get anything off the ground.
Writing a simple melody can take weeks to get it right where I want it, but I do quite enjoy it.
