Bruce Springsteen Writing Quotations

I have to write and play. If I became an electrician tomorrow, I'd still come home at night and write songs.

You need two things to remain very, very present. You need to continue to write well and engage yourself in the issues of the day. And you have to continue to make good, relevant records.

I'm not in any rush. I'm not somebody who, if I write a song, I get it out. That's not something I've ever really quite done.

I don't write demographically. I don't write a song to reach these people or those people.

I tend to be a subscriber to the idea that you have everything you need by the time you're 12 years old to do interesting writing for most of the rest of your life - certainly by the time you're 18.

I don't like to write rhetorically or get on a soapbox. I try to make the stuff multi-layered, so that it always has a life outside its social context. I don't believe that you can tell people anything; you can only draw them in.

I was always concerned with writing to my age at a particular moment. That was the way I would keep faith with the audience that supported me as I went along.

I always write with an audience in mind. If I feel that [connection] coming back at me then I feel like I'm doing my job. That's why people come to my music - for some emotional experience or a perspective, either on their own lives, or on the world that they're living in.

the poets down here don't write nothin' at all, they just stand back and let it all be...

All I try to do is write music that feels meaningful to me, that has commitment and passion behind it.

I didn't know if it would be a successful one, or what the stages would be, but I always saw myself as a lifetime musician and songwriter...I was always concerned with writing to my age at a particular moment. That was the way I would keep faith with the audience that supported me as I went along...I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't...The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.