Neil Tennant Quotes

I remember Tim telling me that he had an idea for a musical and he said to me that he was hoping that ABBA would be writing the music, which I thought was a pretty wild idea because they were obviously known very much as pop writers.

If one wants to go on living, one must evolve. Before, when we composed, we would start by a series of music themes. Once created, we would hire writers and lyricists to make up the text and the story line. I was the first to do this backwards with 'Man of La Mancha.'

I carry around a black leather Moleskine journal all the time. And I always write ideas down, especially when I'm on set and working with actors like Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis and learning from them.

I often draw from people in my own experience to base a character on, going back to my days with Mike Leigh.

Good musicals, a strange world, seem so easy. People say, 'Ohhh, it's magic.' Nothing's magic. A thing doesn't jell. Adapt. Change the rhythm. Shorten the scene. Rewrite the character. Maneuver the waters. Seeming easy is why so many shows aren't good.

While I write for myself, I also write for other artists too.

I want to write just as much as Kanye may have for whomever Kanye has written for.

With a musical, you kind of have to do a mind-meld with the book-writer, the lyricist, the composer, the director - sometimes the producer. I think that's a reason why musicals are the hardest form.

I try not to think of actors as I'm writing because I think you do them a disservice by writing for things they've already done.

I'm a bit of a magpie: whatever I see or hear or read feeds into the songs.

I grew up with another pretty darn good writer: Glenn Frey of the Eagles. We were very good friends, and we kind of studied it together.

'Rent' was the show that made me want to write. Or that showed me you're allowed to write.

But I'm not adverse to the idea of Torch Song as a musical. It would just be different. Because the play will always be there exactly as it was, and in a musical you could tell a lot of the story through songs.

The way I personally work is I like to write what I know, what I feel, and also where I am.

We love to start from a real place, whether it's us or our friends or working on a story from a writer's friend.

I know some things when I start. I know, let's say, that the play is going to be a 1970s or a 1930s play, and it's going to be about a piano, but that's it. I slowly discover who the characters are as I go along.

I originally went to school to be a filmmaker. And so it's a big part of how I think and how I write. And it inspires me a lot.

I learned a lot from the various artists I produced. Either you see them doing something that you do want to do it, or you see them doing something the way you don't want to do it.

Writing with a partner is, in some ways, an easy but odd process. Two people come into a room and look to each other for motivation. One might not be in the right mood at any given moment. And somehow, you begin; somehow, out of your exchange of thoughts, something engages both of you, and the process of collaboration begins.

I stopped writing lyrics down on paper after me and Jay-Z did 'Money In the Bank.' They're something I just hold in my mind.

Poetry is almost like my foundation for everything. I almost feel I am a better actor and writer because of it.

It's more fun to write stuff when you know someone's going to nail it.

When I first started writing, it was me alone with a computer in my apartment. I hated the time away from other people, and my writing sucked. Now I have a laptop; I can do the most tedious part of my job in a public place.

There have been days where I've had two writers' rooms or three writers' rooms going, and you walk back and forth. And then you sort of throw yourself on the sofa, and you go, 'Just talk at me for, like, 20 minutes,' and my brain will catch up with this particular story. But I find that exciting.

I think 'Dark Blue' came to me while I was doing a project in London. I read it, and the character immediately popped out at me.