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When you are pushing yourself to not go back to the same well, you're gonna come up with something different, or you'll find songs that are different.

When I finished a song that I thought was good, I thought, I don't know where that came from, so I have no idea if I can do that again. I'm talking like, a hundred and fifty songs down the line. I still feel that.

There are some songs where you're like, 'I really like this song,' and it just didn't work out how you thought it would. That's life. You win some, you lose some. You can't dwell on it. I can't be worried about the past.

Pop music thrives on repetition. You know a song's a hit when you've heard it so often that you'll be happy never to hear it again.

Sometimes ideas are coming so fast that I have to stop doing one song to get another. But I don't forget the first one. If it works, it will always be there. It's like the truth: it will find you and lift you up. And if it ain't right, it will dissolve like sand on the beach.

My song 'Play It Again' is a perfect example of my music because the verses go so hard, and they're so urban; and then this pop hook comes out of nowhere and socks you in the face and makes you want to dance.

Sometimes if a song hits me really good the first time, I get sick of it. And by the 10th time I've heard it, it's just candy, and I don't like it anymore.

I just sat down and thought, I'm going to write a song today, I'm going to give it a try. So I just stuck it on a tape like everything else. That was just another song.

All my songs are different, but from the overall experience, I want people to sense that they can overcome and move through difficult times and find strength in my music. Maybe it's a song that makes them cry and move through something else.

One of the big songwriting things for me has always been: always think what you do sucks. Because the second you stop believing that, you suck. And that's a fact.