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

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.

I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.

I voluntarily inflicted a certain level of insanity on myself.

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.

In the late '70s I started to search for the perfect sound - whatever that might be, before that I was mainly interested in drugs, insanity and the rock'n'roll lifestyle.

To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.

Look, we're all saddled with things that make us better or worse. This world is a crazy place, and I've chosen to make my work about that insanity.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

I was disappointed, not because we had lost the war but because our people had allowed it to go on for so many years, instead of heeding the few voices of protest against all that mass insanity and slaughter.

There's a big difference between sanity and insanity.

I can choose to accelerate my disease to an alcoholic death or incurable insanity, or I can choose to live within my thoroughly human condition.

I want a world without war, a world without insanity. I want to see people do well. I don't even think it's as much as what I want for myself. It's more what I want for the people around me. That's what I want.

Acting is a way of living out one's insanity.

People in the business will stay with you through drugs and alcohol and divorces and insanity and everything else, but you have a failure, pal, and they don't want to know nothing about you!

What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.

Insanity is knowing that what you're doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can't stop it.

Disease, insanity, and death were the angels that attended my cradle, and since then have followed me throughout my life.

Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage.

Genius is one of the many forms of insanity.

Everything in Italy that is particularly elegant and grand borders upon insanity and absurdity or at least is reminiscent of childhood.