Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The truth will set you free, but it's only slightly less scary than hell and a whole lot harder to get there.
I think of myself as more of a lover rather than a fighter, but sometimes you have to fight for what you love.
My challenge is, do not run away from the hard questions. Truly ask yourself what's worth living for in this life.
Eventually everything fails me, but when I look at the sunset or the sky, I'm reminded what it's like to be alive.
When our world falls apart and we have no more faces to wear - that’s when it’s beautiful, and that’s when we change.
Usually for me, the melodic structures come out in the water and the lyrical ideas could come from a book I'm reading.
Your story matters, who you are matters, tonight matters, none of it is an accident. You were born for the blue skies.
For me songs are born out of the gray space, the things I don't fully understand, the things that I can't put in my pocket.
If we truly believe in an all-powerful God, then there's going to be beauty and truth to be found in all sorts of different places.
Your faith is what you do daily, you can't separate your heart from your body and keep them both alive, they're almost the same thing.
Music is a handshake where I, as a songwriter, am only part of the equation. I love that, the fact that you can make the song your own.
I'm always thinking about songs, I'm thinking of life maybe a little bit more lyrically than a computer programmer or someone like that.
Our world spins upside down and sometimes we have to lose our grip on the things we value in this life in order to grab on to true life.
The kingdom of heaven is comprised of the broken, the fatherless, the poor, the starving. Nothing that could create good ratings for NBC.
Hope is not something you can just place in your back pocket or put your fingers around – it’s the belief in a world that has yet to exist.
You want songs to sound cohesive with the other songs on the record but when you first start writing you just want to write to tell the truth.
I wanna be a part of the generation that throws out money, throws out time, throws out all that we are against something bigger than ourselves.
If you truly love someone, you're going to be pure because true love comes from God, and God tells us to remain pure. That's good enough for me.
Life tears at us and scars us as children so we adopt facades and masks to hide this part of us, to keep this sacred part of ourselves from the pain.
IF YOU APPROACH THE WORLD WITH THE APRON OF A SERVANT,THEN YOU ARE ALLOWED TO GO PLACES THAT YOU CAN'T GO IF YOU APPROACH IT WITH THE CROWN OF A KING
I try to write songs just for the song itself. I don't try and think about where it's going to end up, that way you're writing for the good of the song.
I try to surf everyday or at least go for a walk on the beach if the waves are flat. The more I travel, the more I appreciate where I live and the ocean.
I have horrible acting ability. I can only be one thing and that's it. So for better, for worse, that's all I've got to offer is me. I've got nothing else.
I love a good pop song. I have no problem with the concept of doing that sort of thing. For me, it's usually what I'm inspired by, what I'm thinking about.
The life, when we're aware of beauty, is kind of a bittersweet thing, it's a transient reminder of eternal beauty, which someday we will be face to face with.
I like to write on airplanes... that forced meditation time when you have nothing else to do, so your mind is allowed to go to places it wouldn't otherwise go.
If we spend our time obsessing with the future or regretting the past, then we will never live. Tomorrow will always be tomorrow and yesterday cannot be changed.
Just as drowning cannot be equated with swimming, mere existence is not the same as abundant life. We have been offered a new way to live – a new way to be human.
The song can be a little bit more of the mystery and leave the whole thing open ended. But there's something really gratifying about saying exactly what you mean.
I've always been fascinated with the strong emotional ties that music can have. A song can bring you back to a place or a season of life like no other art form can.
I used to think that great art happened without argument, and maybe that’s not the case. Maybe the things that are most important in this life, you have to fight for.
Most of the time a spark of beauty or truth will start a fire of a song but fires rarely produce goodness on their own ... you need to control them and put them to work.
I think surfing and music are both places of release and self expression where there are no rules, and you can find a different form of freedom that you can't anywhere else.
Don't be discouraged, but know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance brings character, and character brings hope, and this is a hope which will not disappoint us.
Inside all of us, we know the truth of life that there's something more than the next new cell phone or gadget or relationship and that our heart beats in time with the sunset.
I want to be a compassionate soul, finding worth and beauty in the worlds around me and within me, attempting to sing a transcendent tune with my temporal position in this life.
Pain is a common emotion in many of my songs mainly because I often don't know other ways to express it adequately. In my songs I wrestle with the things that I don't understand.
The biggest problem facing our world today is a lack of hope and a lack of meaning. [It's] basically just a postmodern world in which there is no right or wrong, no better or worse.
From the shore, the ocean is forever. It's a beautiful, dangerous place. Music is tied to the sea, born from the struggle, looking for hope. Because hope belongs in the dark places.
I've experienced more sunrises with my bandmates and friends out on the road than with my wife, because we're always up at these strange times in the mornings trying to catch a plane.
I do have an obligation, however, a debt that cannot be settled by my lyrical decisions. My life will be judged by my obedience, not my ability to confine my lyrics to this box or that.
For me, I want to create a environment for the songs to live in. So one song by itself only tells a piece of the story, but in the context of the album, more of the colors are revealed.
There are a lot of similarities between music and surfing. There's a rhythm to both of them and with sound waves and ocean waves, you see patterns, plus the breathing is all part of it.
Switchfoot is a surfing term… To switch your feet means to take a new stance facing the opposite direction. It's about change and movement, a different way of approaching life and music.
My best sunsets are always going to be in my home town, San Diego. Watching the sunset from the Pacific knowing that you're sleeping in your own bed, there's something special about that.
There are certain songs that I like to listen to at certain times of the day. For example, first thing in the morning I love listening to "Flamenco Sketches" off of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.
If you can have a couple of tight friends that you can tell things to, that you can say, 'Hey, this is what I'm struggling with,' and then pray and talk about it, then that's an incredible thing.
I began thinking about the idea of a 24 hour concert. What if you tied songs to certain hours of the day - creating a 24 hour world of lyric and melody. So that was the inspiration for this project.
Sometimes, the best songs are the ones you write without any pen and paper or audio recording device or guitar in your hands. Because there's nothing between you and the melody; it's just a great lyric.
There is a deeper portion of our being that we rarely allow others to see. Call it a soul maybe, this is the place that holds the most value. All else can drift but this. When this dies our body has no meaning.