I always found very strong images for my songwriting in New York.

I enjoy songwriting. It's slow-motion improvising.

I don't enjoy songwriting.

I try and treat songwriting as something that I have to practise every day.

The classic, quote/unquote, craft of songwriting still works; it still is relevant.

I have a weird life because I live on songwriting royalties, which are a strange income. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn't.

To me, songwriting is exaggerating to an extent.

If you pour your life into songs, you want them to be heard. It's a desire to communicate. A deep desire to communicate inspires songwriting.

In my opinion, that's one of the hardest things to do in songwriting: crafting a song that speaks to you but, at its core, is a simple concept.

There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.

I started to feel songwriting was pulling different pieces of my heart out - the more I started writing, the more there was honesty.

I have two or three guys that I'm really close to. We have a great friendship, and I think that helps our songwriting relationship. It's hard to start... with new people and cover the ground that I've covered with those guys.

I don't believe that songwriting has to be profound, but I truly believe that it's a crime for you to go outta your way for it not to be.

I found songwriting really hard at first, but after a while it was actually very easy.

Songwriting was my own journey. I never fit in with structure in songwriting.

I think songwriting was the biggest way that I found my identity.

In advertising, you have a small window to say the most you can. That's what songwriting is. The difference is, you get to put the leaves on the trees and colour 'em in.

Songwriting isn't always something that's directly proportionate to the experience.

There's been many times when a producer will say, 'I don't think you want to say that.' We were told we shouldn't be so brutally honest about songwriting or radio or the industry.

Songwriting is a mysterious art. When I sit down to write a song, the end result should be mysterious and have this dark quality.