Quotes from Poo Bear

When you wake up every day, it's like a new birthday: it's a new chance to be great again and make great decisions.

I had people telling me how much I sucked and how bad my music was, but I didn't allow that to discourage me to the point where I didn't want to do music anymore.

I never wanna settle; I never wanna be complacent - I gotta outwork everybody.

I see my friends who have superstar lifestyles, and it's great to have hundreds of millions of dollars, but at the same time, it's a sacrifice of your own sanity.

I've never stopped writing, I've never slowed down just because I don't have something on the radio or a No. 1 or No. 2 record. That doesn't mean that I'm not in the studio planting seeds.

It's cool to have a big record, but it's even cooler for the world to love it and sing along to it in every club word-for-word. It's a real feeling.

Just because I make something doesn't mean that it's going to be amazing, and most creative people don't like to admit when their music is just okay.

I don't want to be an artist; I don't really want to sing - though I do sing on a few songs. But I want to be the guy that presents new music from both new artists and established artists at the same time.

Often by the time writers and producers try to get a new hit song, the industry has already moved on. Whatever you're creating might not be as hot as it would have been during the time of your first hit. It definitely compromises the creative process when the music is changing and evolving so fast. If you're not on top of it, you will be forgotten.

I'm like this ghost - you look around, and all you see is the artist. But if you look at the credits, it's still Poo Bear.

People love music, but they also love the lifestyle and glam that comes along with it.

Finally, I've reached a place where if I'm working with an artist, they allow me to just do whatever I feel. Growing up, it was like, 'We want another 'Peaches and Cream.' Then you realise... why would you want a 2001 Mercedes Benz when I'm making 2018 Benzes?

I don't know about the rest of the world, but America loves redemption. They love giving people second chances.

Toronto is my favourite city in the world.

Ideally, it would be cool to actually get to know artists enough to know what their feelings are, what they believe in, what they want people to get from them, what they represent.

Most writer's blocks come from people second-guessing to the point where they get discouraged, and they just quit. For me, if I write something and it's not amazing, I don't care because even if I feel like it might not be amazing, it could still be a number-one hit.

Back in the Nineties, I was in an R&B group. I signed my first record deal when I was 12.

My first significant break was when I was 15, going on 16, and my cousin Courtney 'Bear' Sills told me you can make a career out of writing songs. He was the one who put me in with 112. The first song I did with 112 was 'We Can Do It Anywhere.'

I find inspiration by feeling like I haven't done or achieved anything. I push all songs I've written to the furthest part of my mind so I am not thinking of what I've done. I continue to think on what I need to do.

I had to go through so much trial and error to get all the whack-ness out of my system as a kid. I think everybody has to do that. You have to go through a period of failing in order to get better at it - whatever you're doing.

Working with Justin Bieber, I learned that he can literally do any genre - he's a chameleon. His voice is so flexible that he's not locked in to one genre, and it just shows the world that he can really sing anything.

People say to me, 'You're a genius; you're great.' I don't know if I'll ever feel that way about myself. Some things, I feel like, are better left for other people to say, and I'm just not into, like, tooting my own horn or bragging or anything.

As a songwriter, I got used to being in the background.

Being a songwriter, my job is just to write songs for people. I'm not attached to them.