Cynthia's lyrics always expressed the feelings people felt but they couldn't express themselves.

There's so much fear involved in trying to do something you don't know how to do that drugs and alcohol can become a big part of your life if you have an addictive personality or are very unsure, which most songwriters are.

You're going to have more rejection than acceptance.

I've written songs sober and I've written songs high.

If we didn't get the record, we didn't exist.

Probably most successful songwriters have an innate songwriting ability.

One other thing, if it's possible, as songwriters, you should also develop yourself as record producers.

A guitar riff played on a piano doesn't come close to the purity of it being played on a guitar but I faked it enough to get by.

If I waited for inspiration every time I sat down to write a song I probably would be a plumber today.

I know at the beginning of our careers, my wife and I were gut wrenchingly competitive.

You've got to really be able to accept the rejection.

I quit college. I was studying architecture for about a year.

We lived, ate, and breathed pop songs.

You can get stale writing with each other for a while.

We became the songs we wrote.

If we were the team that won out, then life was good and we felt that we were worth something.

You have certain writing tools but generally creating something from nothing makes one quite mad and Cynthia and I are quite mad you know.

I also used to work in the Catskill Mountains as a bus boy, and I performed in talent shows.

I get a different kind of lyric from someone else that might make me go in a different musical direction.

I looked through our catalog year by year, and I saw that there were pockets of time when we wrote some terrific songs. Then all of a sudden, we'd go for another two or three months and there weren't great songs.

It's very hard to teach someone how to write a song if to begin with there's no creative crop to harvest.

We've written something like 900 songs in all.

I think that most writers who wait until they're inspired to write are just waiting for the fear to subside.

You have to be very brave in that first writing session.

It's amazing how a competitive nature can turn a negative into something positive.

It's very important, at least for me and for Cynthia, to get outside input.

The real danger of writing a great song when you're on something is that it might get you thinking that the only way to repeat that is by only writing when you're high.

Cynthia's lyrics always expressed the feelings people felt but they couldn't express themselves.

I think if one wants to be in a continual state of insanity one should stay married to that writing partner.

A guitar riff played on a piano doesnt come close to the purity of it being played on a guitar but I faked it enough to get by.

You will never know the feeling of a driver when winning a race. The helmet hides feelings that cannot be understood.

There is no other who experiences your thoughts or your feelings.

I think one's feelings waste themselves in words; they ought all to be distilled into actions which bring results.

Kinsey would identify himself with Galileo in moments of feelings of persecution.

As a small child, I felt in my heart two contradictory feelings, the horror of life and the ecstasy of life.

As an alcoholic, you have no appreciation for your wife or your children's feelings, but I'm making up for that now. I'm winning my children's trust back.

A lot of the stuff that I do with Betty is in the eyes. A lot of the feelings that I evoke with her are unspoken, so that's been fun to play with.

Isn't it strange that its easier to be gentle with the feelings of people we care less about than those of our children, whom we love so much?

I love the line of Flaubert about observing things very intensely. I think our duty as writers begins not with our own feelings, but with the powers of observing.

A date once leaned in to kiss me, and he ended up kissing my cheek. He was a little offended, but I didn't want to kiss him just to not hurt his feelings.

Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?

A poem might be defined as thinking about feelings - about human feelings and frailties.

Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.

We have listened here to the delegates who have recalled the terrible human suffering, and the great material destruction of the late war in the Pacific. It is with feelings of sorrow that we recall the part played in that catastrophic human experience by the old Japan.

In a novel, my feelings and sense of outrage can find a broader means of expression which would be more symbolic and applicable to many European countries.

Everything I do is blown out of proportion. It really hurts my feelings.

The story line was done in a way that's organic and was doled out very slowly in little bites. We think that's authentic for this character, that her feelings are very deeply buried or she never felt them.

I'd much rather be in a movie that people have really strong feelings about than one that makes a hundred million dollars but you can't remember because it's just like all the others.

The blues comes right back to a person's feelings, to his daily activities in life. But rich people don't know nothing about the blues, please believe me.