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The key to songwriting is just to be able to observe, and put yourself in situations to be around people, and let those ideas come to you.

Songwriting is kind of like a craft. It's not something that just comes in a dream. You've got to work at it.

I've never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I've only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

The whole point of music is being able to share your story. I've been songwriting for a long time, usually while on the road, as a way to get my feelings out.

You wind up creating from silence, like painting a picture on a blank canvas that could bring tears to somebody's eyes. As songwriters, our blank canvas is silence. Then we write a song from an idea that can change somebody's life. Songwriting is the closest thing to magic that we could ever experience. That's why I love songwriting.

When I write a song, it is to fill a niche in people's lives. To have a song for every experience if one hadn't been written yet.

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn't get some of that stuff out.

I think songwriting is the ultimate form of being able to make anything that happens in your life productive.

I try to write life and not songs. People live life, and when you write life, you're going to mess around and touch somebody's heart, and they'll relate to you and what you're singing about.