104 Quotes by Ben Gibbard

If you're going through a difficult time, and there's a piece of music that speaks to you - be it musically or lyrically or both - you are almost always able to access that music. You're always able to sit down with it.

I've written a lot of songs in the last couple years, but writing a lot of songs doesn't always mean writing good songs.

I still love 'The Cure' more than almost any other band. But they were really, truly like the first band that I really loved and felt was mine, you know. At a pivotal time in my life when I was 13, 14 years old.

I think a very clear cut example of - dare I say - plagiarism is the Sam Smith-Tom Petty situation, where you have a song that is flagrantly... it is the hook from one song being used for another song. To me, that was a very obvious example of plagiarism. If somebody had done that to me, I would probably take a similar course of action.

My goal as a songwriter now is to simply write some memorable turns of phrase.

I don't feel that all the great songs have been written. I do feel that where we are now, certainly with rock & roll music, is that so much of it is variations on themes. But I think that it's one's particular creativity and individuality that comes out within that variation on a particular theme that makes a song great.

I love bummer songs.

I decided a handful of years ago that I just want to write songs that you can understand as soon as you put the record on. There's no need to veil what's happening in the song the way I used to.

I think the narratives on 'Trans,' 'Plans,' and 'Narrow Stairs' moved away from the way I wrote on the first couple of records, which was a lot more impressionistic. I was writing those songs in my early 20s, so I thought I was being more clear than I actually was.