Top 100 Quotes About Writing And Music
#1. I've always been interested in both writing and music. When I first started getting published, I also worked as rehearsal pianist for the Boston Ballet, touring with them all over the U.S.A. and Europe - I wasn't making enough money from writing to support myself.
William Sleator
#2. The calligraphic letter is not entirely a letter,
but something that sits between writing and music
Abdelkebir Khatibi
#3. Some writers are curiously unmusical. I don't get it. I don't get them. For me, music is essential. I always have music on when I'm doing well. Writing and music are two different mediums, but musical phrases can give you sentences that you didn't think you ever had.
Barry Hannah
#4. I think there are a lot of similarities between writing and music. Music is much more direct and much more emotional and that's the level I want to be at when I'm writing. Writing is much more intellectual and indirect and abstract, in a way.
Karl Ove Knausgard
#5. I started writing music when I was 15 in my bedroom, and I'd post them on MySpace, and from there it shifted to doing covers on YouTube and building my Twitter.
Tori Kelly
#6. My favorite way of working is if somebody gives me a piece of music, because I'm quite limited as a player, so it's my favorite thing if somebody gives me a piece of music, and then I can write lyrics and melodies.
Sinead O'Connor
#7. Writing a song doesn't heal things. Even if the song comes up with a solution, it's still only a theory. Going out and living my lyrics is a whole other deal. That takes courage.
Alanis Morissette
#8. When we started writing this kind of music in the beginning, I didn't think that many people would listen to it, but over the years our fan base just kept growing and growing. Now, it's like we do it for us and our fans.
Jeff Hanneman
#9. I used to split my time between writing, music and painting. I would work on a book and then abandon it, start a band, do an album, quit music, then do a gallery show. Eventually I decided to give writing a serious shot.
Isaac Marion
#10. I think it's hard to really write a song that will educate someone because songs are meant to be ... you don't want to be too didactic in a song because it doesn't make for good music. And I think the role of songs can be to inspire people but there needs to education and prose to back that up.
John Legend
#11. I'm a self-taught musician so how I read music is kind of very weak and I kind of read my own version of tablature, I write my own crappy reminders on what I'm playing.
Jason Mraz
#12. Music always stimulates my imagination. When I'm writing I usually have some Baroque music on low in the background chamber music by Bach, Telemann, and the like.
Haruki Murakami
#13. I knew I wanted to be in music, but I didn't know my role, so I did everything from interning at Rolling Stone to writing heavy metal fanzines to playing in a high-school band, and I think all those things probably helped in a way.
Mark Ronson
#14. Me personally, I side more with punk rock bands. I grew up with The Misfits, The Dead Boys, The Damned, Dropkick Murphys, and early AFI. That was the stuff that really got me into music. Song writing wise, bands like Alkaline Trio were very important to me for beginning to write songs.
Andy Biersack
#15. Unlike motor sport, I didn't get into music for the live performances. I like writing and studio work and seeing how a song can come to life.
Jacques Villeneuve
#16. In my life, looking at other women who have been pregnant while writing, I always feel like it's kind of their most musical or the closest to themselves. I think for me it's such a validating moment, you know. I always knew I wanted to have kids, and I've been making music all my life.
Kelis
#17. Writing music is really personal, and it's a really exciting thing to participate in because represents the full creative process: It feels like something is coming from nothing.
Zooey Deschanel
#18. I'm weird - I don't really listen to American music while I'm writing. I do occasionally get an anthem song, but generally speaking, when I write, I only listen to Japanese and Hawaiian music.
Violet Duke
#19. If I'm going to continue to be any kind of spiritual teacher, I've got to go deeper myself. And so for me, [I am] preserving long periods of solitude, silence, prayer, journaling, study, writing. I don't turn on music or the TV unless I really need to.
Richard Rohr
#20. To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I'm writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I'm going to play for the opening sequence.
Quentin Tarantino
#21. Writing, acting, music, comedy. A deep love of literature and books. Thank God for all the artists who've helped me.
Bill Hicks
#22. I have my writing and acting and producing and directing, and my younger brother has his music and his acting.
Kevin Schmidt
#23. Write your own music and write frequently. Go to as many live shows as you can as well (of bands you enjoy of course). You can learn a lot watching other performers.
Dia Frampton
#24. I keep a guitar around while writing and will improvise music. I do this for several reasons, such as that it's fun, and sometimes it helps me with the meter.
Jack Prelutsky
#25. So how do you do it, with just words and just music, capture the feeling that my Earth is somebody's ceiling?
Sara Bareilles
#26. I've been asked which of the other arts novel-writing is most like, and I have come to believe it is acting. Of course, in terms of pattern it can be like music, in terms of structure it can be like painting, but the job to me is most like acting.
Andrew O'Hagan
#27. In the music industry, we value large success. I realized that while I would like that, that it's not what my writing is about. And if I start making it about that, it becomes impure.
David Friedman
#28. Music is a language - and language, at its finest, should be music.
T.L. Rese
#29. Although we are being presented in Carnegie Hall, we have to furnish a budget for our guest stars, and for the music writing - which is a huge budget in any orchestra that plays popular music.
Skitch Henderson
#30. I went to school in Gainesville because it was a huge punk and folk town. So I went to class twice a week, and then I went to shows and wrote. I did a lot of music writing before I actually started playing music.
Benjamin Booker
#31. When I write lyrics, it's only when I'm angry or hurt or sad. So lyrically it's never really easy going. And the music is always really intense.
Henry Rollins
#32. And of course, in my writing, there is the constant theme of music, love of, preoccupation with, music. Music is the single thread making my life into a coherency.
Philip K. Dick
#33. I just had to find something else to fulfill me. Always being a singer and writing, it was a blessing. My brother started making music that was the kind of music I always saw myself singing.
Taryn Manning
#34. Todd and Tim [Tobias] write the music, and I come up with the melodies and lyrics. I call it the Ohio Rock Factory. Tim and Todd run the northern plant in Cleveland, and I've got the southern plant down here in Dayton. No tours permitted.
Robert Pollard
#35. When I was 4 years old my mother put me into an early music education school. That's where they taught you perfect pitch and harmony and how to write music and all that. At that time, one of the homeworks was to listen to all the sounds and the noise of a day and transfer that into musical notes.
Yoko Ono
#36. A lot of music for me was about - I mean aside from the fun and challenge of writing and being really good friends with my bandmates - getting to perform.
Carrie Brownstein
#37. I look at composers and conductors, anybody involved in music or writing or art in general; they got more done as they got older. If I can, I'll be one of those people because what I do is my passion.
Sarah Brightman
#38. I write a lot of stuff, and some of it I don't even present to Judas Priest. But having said that, my first love is to play Judas Priest music.
Glenn Tipton
#39. Writing more and more to the sound of music, writing more and more like music. Sitting in my studio tonight, playing record after record, writing, music a stimulant of the highest order, far more potent than wine.
Anais Nin
#40. Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist.
Cameron Crowe
#41. When I use weed creatively, I'm much better at drawing or making something or playing music. But what I do for a living is mostly performing as an actor or writing, and for those things I need to have my faculties sharp.
Nick Offerman
#42. I have so many songs, it's ridiculous. I love so many different types of music and tend to write all over the map, style-wise. R&B, rock 'n' roll, screamers, pop, good-time songs.
Taryn Manning
#43. Man is driven to create; I know I really love to create things. And while I'm not good at painting, drawing, or music, I can write software.
Yukihiro Matsumoto
#44. I'd always thought that if I could get sober and stay sober, I would be able to have a career making music. My drug and alcohol addiction was the one thing holding me back. I had finally gotten the tools to stay sober, and it was just a matter of writing the songs.
Macklemore
#45. I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression, whether it was through music, or acting, or dancing, or painting, or writing.
Alanis Morissette
#46. When I started writing full time I had not long stopped being a teacher and when at last I had a full day to write, I would put music on and wonder to myself - am I allowed to do this? Then I thought: 'I am control of this and no one is telling me what I can do.'
Roddy Doyle
#47. I'm a really visual artist, and I love writing treatments for music videos, photo shoots, fashion, and all the visual parts that go along with making an album.
Bonnie McKee
#48. Sometimes I'll write a song. When I've gone through something really hard in my life, sometimes it's other people's music. Other times it's actually writing the songs and getting out of mind and into the song.
Jack Johnson
#49. I want story, wit, music, wryness, color, and a sense of reality in what I read, and I try to get it in what I write.
John D. MacDonald
#50. I personally feel the need to experience life and new music and ideas before I can sit down and start writing music again.
DJ Shadow
#51. Our sense of what American English is has upended our relationship to articulateness, our approach to writing, and how (and whether) we impart it to the young, our interest in poetry, and our conception of what it is, and even our response to music and how we judge it.
John McWhorter
#52. I've been writing and making my own music for a long time.
Patti Scialfa
#53. We played more rock music when we were writing the script. 'Renegade'. All of the Styx songs. All of the old '70's and '80's music, that's the stuff that's pounding in the background while we were doing this stuff. It's a part of those movies.
Todd Farmer
#54. I like and I love everything that has to do with cinema: writing, directing, editing, creating music, and even acting.
Werner Herzog
#56. Composing is a natural fit. As far as the creative process goes, I'd rather do this than anything else, by far. Something different happened to me when I started to write music to images. It was a feeling of excitement and connection and a sense of being in the right place that I never had before.
James Newton Howard
#57. I've been writing music since I was 9. I took harmony and counterpoint classes when I was studying the clarinet. So, I've been writing for an awfully long time. It just became part of everyday life.
Howard Shore
#58. I first started writing music when I was 15 and at 16, I was playing in different cities in Australia. When I was 18, I was voted number one DJ in Australia.
TyDi
#59. One of the things I particularly enjoyed doing was taking raw sound from locations during the film, like the candy machine, and writing pieces of music to go with them, which is totally unnecessary within the context of the film, because they have their own logic.
Fred Frith
#60. People have these incredible expectations. So instead of being inspired by, say, Joni Mitchell's music, I look at it and say to myself, 'I'm going to quit - why would I think of writing or performing after listening to that?'
Idina Menzel
#61. Music is my longtime friend. And I could never betray it. I listen to music while I'm writing.
Haruki Murakami
#62. A lot of my writing comes from the themes of my life, and a lot of that stems from my faith. I also strive to be a light through which Christ can shine, whether it's through the way I dress, though my videos, or through my music.
Lindsey Stirling
#63. I used to be opposed to collaboration, and that's probably why the music in the past wasn't as good. Writing with other people, especially the great writers that I've had the privilege to write with, it activates something in your mind that you wouldn't use alone.
Charlie Puth
#64. I have no education, I have no academic background in painting or in music, but I write music and I compose music and I write and I sell paintings, and my rule is, well, they can't arrest me.
Anthony Hopkins
#65. Everybody has they're own audience you know what I'm saying. I write rhymes and make music for the people that I fell wanna hear my music. They write rhymes and make music for the people they feel wanna hear they're music.
Bun B.
#67. I don't find a lot of people actually saying things through music any longer. They are not trying to say anything with their music, they just want to make money with it. I think it's important to actually say something real, something meaningful, rather than just write some trash and try to sell it.
Robben Ford
#68. Texas people are really strong in their roots. I started writing and playing guitar at 17. I've always loved music, and my dad is a singer-songwriter.
Miranda Lambert
#69. When I hit a period of not being able to write music, I get up and walk away. It's pretty mean but it's true.
Lily Allen
#70. I'm writing for the sake of writing music. Whether it gets heard or not isn't an issue for me. It keeps my own juices going and my mind active.
Billy Joel
#71. I started out doing music videos and photography, and I always loved writing.
Brendan Fletcher
#72. I love being in the studio, and I am a huge fan of live music. Without writing good stuff in the studio, you have nothing to play live.
Anthony Hamilton
#73. I think any music of any worth has been done by people who were very interested in the internal process of their soul and their mind that's taking place while they're writing music.
John Frusciante
#74. When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can.
Jennifer Donnelly
#75. I know definitive points in my life and in relationships because of my songs. I write my music so that I'll never be bored of it.
Amy Winehouse
#76. I love what I do. I made my first record in '57. I don't think I'll ever get tired of making records and writing songs and singing and being in the music business.
Ray Stevens
#77. I love music that has good catchy choruses and fits into many different genres ... I like real artists, that write their own material and are great performers.
Perez Hilton
#78. I got a scholarship to Seattle University and I was writing arrangements for singers and everybody. But the music course was too dry and I really wanted to get away from home.
Quincy Jones
#79. I can't compose or play music; I'm not that fortunate. But I can write and I can talk and sometimes when I'm doing either of these things I realize that I've written a sentence or uttered a thought that I didn't absolutely know I had in me ... until I saw it on the page or heard myself say it.
Christopher Hitchens
#80. All I had was the will and the love for music. I couldn't read music or write it. No connections, no car, no money, no bankroll, no clothes, no nothing.
Barry White
#81. Music, art, writing - it gives us a sense of who we are, a sense of our history, a sense of our future and it should provide some kind of comfort. It's not just entertainment for entertainment's sake, it's an investment.
Sheryl Crow
#82. Why would anyone pay for writing anymore when there's Facebook and why would anyone pay for music anymore when there's YouTube.
Lisa Bedrick
#83. I've mostly been focusing on writing, and I've really enjoyed not playing music. It will always be part of my life, but I don't feel the immediate need to be playing for people.
Carrie Brownstein
#84. It's very weird to write a song in your apartment and then realize that this random person knows all the words to it.
Toby Lightman
#85. My own goals center around writing the best music that I can, and only I can determine whether or not I've succeeded in accomplishing that.
Michael Hersch
#86. My expectations for myself were never high. I had a very unusual way of writing songs and of thinking about music. I wasn't at all like Bob Dylan or Simon and Garfunkel. I was completely different - I didn't have a David Geffen at my side.
Don McLean
#87. Portland in particular is a cheap enough place to live that you can still develop your passion - painting, writing, music. People seem less status-conscious. Even wealthy people buy second-hand clothes and look a little bit homeless.
Chuck Palahniuk
#88. I like photography and I write; I also write music. One day I would like to direct [films] as well .
Zoe Kravitz
#89. He was conscious of nothing except the blankness of the page in front of him, the itching of the skin above his ankle, the blaring of the music, and a slight booziness caused by the gin.
George Orwell
#90. I love just going out; long drives, the ocean, my kids, new music, new gear, new plug-ins, coffee, and donuts at four in the morning. Even just waking up and writing.
John Feldmann
#91. Music is just a really fun hobby that I do, because I'm actually really good about writing songs and producing. People don't realize this, but I am an excellent writer for artists.
Tila Tequila
#92. If Broadway musicals were as popular as they were in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, then people like Sufjan Stevens and Iron & Wine would be writing for Broadway, which would be amazing. As it stands, it's the worst stuff that's mired in pop music.
Colin Meloy
#93. When I write stuff that's provocative, I want people to think about that, too. I'm in between a pop musician and an artist in that way. I want people to be part of the music as they listen, but I also want them to think: What was that?
Jenny Hval
#94. Since I met Starsmith, my producer, I really feel like I'm making music because we write it together and produce it together. I've got a proper involvement in the end product as opposed to just writing a song and finding someone else to produce it.
Ellie Goulding
#95. I think it's all about the people who listen to your music, and loving playing and writing. Once you've got those two, and they're your main two priorities, then radio and TV and all the other stuff that comes with it will come. But that's not the be-all end-all.
Gabrielle Aplin
#96. When I write songs I write for myself ... I'm writing it as a form of expression, and hoping to find an audience, an audience that responds to music that is honest and lyrical and tells stories.
Patti Scialfa
#97. Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.
Truman Capote
#98. Just going through a lot in my life, becoming more confident in myself, writing my own music and just really getting in the studio and just doing it.
Paris Hilton
#99. The situation is not good with the record companies. It's just not working out, so I don't plan to record until it's straightened out. In the meantime I'm happy doing my movies and writing the music for the theme songs, whether I sing them or not.
Irene Cara
#100. It is with great disappointment and regret that after having the privilege of writing and performing the music of The Black Crowes over the last 24 years, I find myself in the position of saying that the band has broken up.
Rich Robinson
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