Quotes About Persistence

We never let go. Ever. Even with punctuation. It's frightening. I can't see anyone from any record company ever writing an email to Neil and not getting it back, with corrections.

Missing You' almost didn't get on the No Brakes' album, because the record company said, 'The album's finished. We don't need any more songs.'

I've always known, before I had a record deal, that the thing is to go out and put on the show. I've been doing that from day one.

Before I had a record deal, I was living in New York and playing anywhere I could, from somebody's house to an open mic to coffeeshops.

It only took me six months to get a record deal, but it took me 20 years to have a hit.

I made a CD in my dorm room and put it on the Internet, and my friends blew it up. Within a few months, I was doing shows across the country without a record deal, without a single, without anything.

I was in musical theater when I first started, so there was always both acting and singing. But as far as getting a record deal, that took time. The majority of that time, I was acting.

I started singing when I was 18 and landed my first record deal with RCA when I was 26 after a lot of grafting singing in pubs and clubs.

I'm not desperate to sign, like, a record deal. I'm very hungry, but I'm just not desperate for it.

I went to Nashville when I was 10. Tried to get a record deal. Everybody was like, 'You're 10. It's not gonna happen. Come back later.'

It was actually really hard to get a record deal after 'American Idol.'

When I first started out in the music industry and went to Elektra Records, I didn't go to be an artist, I went to get a record label started. And they said in order to have a label deal, I had to be an artist - so that's what I did.

Remember that a noble logical diagram, once recorded, will never die; long after we are gone, it will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.

It's like whether you're in a huge movie or you've just recorded an incredible album you've got to do the next thing, and that's part of being an artist.

I wish I had a really cool, esoteric answer, but what the process is to me is going onstage night after night after night after night until I get a new hour. And then once that hour is solidified and recorded, I move on.

I believe my songs are strong enough to stand on their own - even way back then when they were recorded badly and minimally.

I recorded my first song when I was 13, 14 years old, and I've been running with it ever since.

I started writing songs in high school. And eventually, I got some songs recorded by some major artists, mostly because I was out there performing, and I was working in coffee houses and lounges, and people came to see me and hear my material.

I recorded 'The Art of Hustle' album three times because I had the time to do it.

I just get focused on whatever is in front of me. When I was filming Crossroads, it had all my focus. Now I'm all focused on finishing my recording so I can get that out. It's just day by day.

I began the process of recording myself seriously in the fall of 1999. If I could finish an album of my own music, I would. Five years later I am happy to say I have.

I just want to keep playing music and keep recording. I feel like my best days are ahead.

I would be involved with music whether I had a career or not. I'm always going to be writing songs and recording them.

I was working at a non-profit for five years. But I could always create music after work. All throughout those years, I was writing songs and recording music and performing around town.