Michael Masser

“People simply learn to process information to the point where it doesn't serve true creativity.”

“I was working as a stockbroker in New York and had the seemingly perfect life.”

“I would spend months and months looking for a sound. I had to do that, or I wouldn't feel the extreme emotions I was feeling in my heart.”

“I was used to being successful in school, but academics didn't make me happy.”

“When you write a song, you don't ask if it's good or not, or if it's gonna sell. When you write a song, you ask whether you've reached deep inside your heart and whether it's honest.”

“I come from a background that stresses education more than anything.”

“When you're writing a song, you have to know two things. You have to know who you are, and you have to think about other people.”

“I left an office at the top of the Pan Am Building, a nine-room apartment, and a farm in Vermont because I was aching inside. It took an analyst to tell me I could write a note of permission to become a musician and sign it.”

“Somehow, people get very nervous about leaving the comfortable life of rules behind and never take the chance to develop their own internal voice, to listen to their own consciousness.”

“I'm definitely a romantic, no doubt about it.”

“I had been the dutiful son and husband for so long, I had forgotten about living for myself.”

“The thing I ran up against was everybody wanted a song so fast. It took me two years to finish 'Touch Me in the Morning.'”