"How do you know if your song is any good? ...A song that expresses what you feel is a good song, even if no one else thinks so. A song that expresses your thoughts and feelings in a way that reaches other people, helps them feel something deeper or understand something better - that's a really good song and probably one that cold earn you some money!" - Robin Frederick, songwriter, music exec and author of Shortcuts to Hit Songwriting: 126 Proven Techniques for Writing Songs That Sell.
"A songwriter should have friends who are similarly interested; should move about in the milieu of work he has chosen for himself." - Dorothy Fields
"As a songwriter, if you can touch people and make them feel a little less alone in the world, then you've done your job." - Tom Cochrane
"I started being a songwriter pretending I could do it, and it turned out I could." - James Taylor
"Being a good songwriter means paying attention and sticking your hand out the window to catch the song on the way to someone else's house!" - Nanci Griffith
"Being a songwriter does not rely on an audience or other band members or a camera. I can just sit in a room and write songs." Rick Springfield
"I may not be the most famous songwriter in the world, but you know a David Friedman song when you hear it. It took me a long time to appreciate that." - David Friedman
"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work." - Emile Zola
"Art doesn't need an audience to exist, it ensures our existence" - Jim Morrison
"I'm not really a songwriter - I'm an interpreter. So in a sense I am an actress first and foremost. I act out the songs, and I lead with my heart." - Diana Ross
"The hack songwriter will write the absolute truth every single word, whether it makes a great song or not." - Paul Westerberg
"The songwriter mustn't fall in love with his own song. If it doesn't belong, he can't push it into a show. Let him save it; maybe it'll fit in another show." - Dorothy Fields
"Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art." - Charlie "YardBird" Parker
"Just as Jesus created wine from water, we humans are capable of transmuting emotion into music..." - Carlos Santana
"Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible. " - Ronnie Scott, jazz saxophonist
"Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung." - Voltaire
"Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best." - Henry Van Dyke
"I wanted to create music that was so different that my mother could tell me from anyone else." - Les Paul
"I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it and you need them to hear it." - James Taylor
"There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself." -Johann Sebastian Bach
Lastly, below is a copy of a page torn from saxophonist Steve Lacy's notebook. It contains notes that Lacy took during the time he spent playing with--and collecting priceless bits of wisdom from--Thelonius Monk in 1960:
