“There are alway going to be bad things. But you can write it down and make a song out of it.”

“I used to see songwriting like editing a film or something. You can edit music like you can edit a film. Or if I was painting or making a picture or something, that night I could sit down and write a song. I think it really helps to break things up. Sometimes when you sit down to write songs, you write three or four songs in a row feeling the same sort of vibe. But if you stop in-between that time and change something, you break the pattern – you prevent yourself from unconsciously falling into a format.”

M.I.A. (1975) British recording artist, songwriter, painter and director

“If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

“Next to a sum of money down, a grievance is the best thing you can have. A man who can stick to a grievance year after year will always make money out of it at last.”

Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) English novelist (1815-1882)

“If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to express it will be good”

Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American playwright and novelist

“I'd love to write another song
Baby especially for you
I'd love to write another song
And feel things bright and new
In poetry I'd carve it well
I'd even make it rhyme
I'd love to write another song
Just to get some peace of mind.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

“Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

“You can make life a lot harder for yourself by focusing on negative things in your path or making excuses for why things didn't go your way. Or, you can refuse to take things personally, let them go, learn from them, and become the best version of yourself. It's a choice. It's actually your choice. If I throw an interception or have a bad day or make a bad business decision, by staying in that place I will just make things worse. Wisdom, someone said, is about knowing the difference between the things you can control and the things you can't. Today, if things go my way, great; and if they don't, that's okay, too, since I always have the chance to overcome them in the future. Whenever my team loses a game, it's an opportunity to learn something. A game is always an experiment.”

Tom Brady (1977) American football quarterback

“I'm a perfectionist. I like to get it right. I like to get it good. And you know, writing songs is not -- it's not the kind of thing that you can count on every day. You never know what's going to come or if it's going to come. So you -- you know, it's an uncertain kind of a thing.”

Neil Diamond (1941) American singer-songwriter

“It's good to be sent back to the underground. There's always a good side to bad things and the good side to this is that at least everyone has to go back down.”

Joe Strummer (1952–2002) British musician, singer, actor and songwriter