Songwriting is a mystery. And it's a mystery to me that…

I sort of have various sort of theories when people ask me about songwriting because it is a mystery. You don't really know. Sometimes…

— Nick Lowe

It sounds so stupid, so basic, but when you are really in a grateful state, you are like a magnet for joy.

— Tony Robbins

“You shanks are driving me nuts. Can’t get out of the Maze, and this idea of hanging with the Grievers at their bachelor pad…

— James Dashner

It may sounds very stupid, I know, but I believe in love. As any important feeling and expression, it has been vulgarized a lot…

— Luiz Bolognesi

“This is part of my heritage, my identity. Normally, people don't understand, even think it sounds stupid, but it is important to me. We…

— Maria Elena Alonso-Sierra

We played it as long as we could play it on that CD and I think it might be 50 minutes, maybe. What you…

— Branford Marsalis

You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting.…

— Conor Oberst

Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff - all this bad, stupid stuff - and then you have to get rid…

— Juliana Hatfield

Songwriters might write cynical, world-wise lyrics and constantly talk about money, but most of us are downright naive when it comes to business.

— Willie Nelson

I sit down with a guitar player and if there's a situation I feel strongly about, or a guy that I've been thinking about…

— Avril Lavigne

I got signed with the songwriting deal when I was sixteen and they were really great - my publishers, who to this day are…

— Lights

You wind up creating from silence, like painting a picture on a blank canvas that could bring tears to somebody's eyes. As songwriters, our…

— Rodney Atkins

Most of us have the residue of thousands of songs in our ears, that if you end up songwriting, I think you're mostly smoking…

— Tom Waits

Teasing out the way the world might look through another's eyes is what makes the creative process so fascinating and enjoyable.

— Stephen L. Carter

Every time I finish a song... most of the time it's in my own head, like this sounds too much like a Townes Van…

— Conor Oberst