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

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.

Fresh sneakers are important on a man. It's like a new pair of boxers or a new pair of socks.

I am perfectly clear in my mind and in my conscience in respect of freedom of religious principles and beliefs.

It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings.

There is no way in which we can retrospectively erase the Treaty of Vienna or the Great Irish Famine. It is a peculiar feature of human actions that, once performed, they can never be recuperated. What is true of the past will always be true of it.

Faith is a process of leaping into the abyss not on the basis of any certainty about where we shall land but rather on the belief that we shall land.

Blues and soul and jazz music has so much pain, so much beauty of raw emotion and passion.

Memory in Greek mythology is the mother of the muses and it is so for me. Both personal and societal memory move me strongly and that is one of the sources of my writing

For me, the brightest years at IronPort were without a doubt the darkest years at home.

The first few films I made didn't look good at all, and I wasn't trying to make them look good. People dig 'em because they like the content.

You can't separate the two, being a parent, being a cop.

Making the choice to cast someone in a lead role is a big one. You don't want to squander your opportunity.

Fear and euphoria are dominant forces, and fear is many multiples the size of euphoria. Bubbles go up very slowly as euphoria builds. Then fear hits, and it comes down very sharply. When I started to look at that, I was sort of intellectually shocked. Contagion is the critical phenomenon which causes the thing to fall apart.

Where I come from your truck is a reflection of who you are.

To be honest, I haven't seen a lot of the current crop of teen movies because there's only so much time and there's nothing that really drives me to do it.

Christians were instructed to serve others, and the thanksgiving was for the grace of God and the fact that God offered a way for man to return to a positive relationship with Him.

I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.

After 'Where The Wild Things Are,' which was this big, long five-year project, I spent a year making small things.

I'm a shape shifter.

I still love the skinny jeans thing and I wear my favorite leather jacket constantly. I like being kind of a rock star. I love that I can feel comfortable in a small dress or I can feel comfortable wearing a baggy T-shirt.