Jon Foreman Quotations | Page 2

For me, the good songs are the ones that come really naturally. There are certain songs that you rework and rewrite and the craft becomes very evident, but a lot of times those aren't my favorite songs. The favorite songs are the ones that I can't even hear my own voice in.

Music has always been a location for me to run to, whether it's through someone else's song or my own. I can observe my own planet from this foreign land and things make sense within the telescopic lens of song.

Sometimes it can be really hard in our fast paced society to slow ourselves down enough to begin to listen to God's voice. The dilemma exists in my position as well. To be a follower of Christ is to emulate Him. When He went off alone into the desert to pray, He was teaching a valuable lesson.

When I'm happy, when I'm enjoying life, I'm home, I'm surfing, I'm spending time with my wife, my friends and I'm not thinking about the pain. And then the moment I encounter something that feels difficult, I feel like that's when, for me, I turn to writing and thinking and maybe a song comes from that.

I'm very reluctant to put my words into God's mouth.

Paste just might be my favorite music magazine. They have shed light on many incredible, under-appreciated folks over the years, helping me find new tunes to accompany me through life. We were honored to give a song in return.

I think sunrises are rarer for me, but sunset is my favourite time of day.

I try to write songs just for the song itself. I don't try and think about where it's going to end up, that way you're writing for the good of the song.

You want songs to sound cohesive with the other songs on the record but when you first start writing you just want to write to tell the truth.

I've experienced more sunrises with my bandmates and friends out on the road than with my wife, because we're always up at these strange times in the mornings trying to catch a plane.

My best sunsets are always going to be in my home town, San Diego. Watching the sunset from the Pacific knowing that you're sleeping in your own bed, there's something special about that.

I've never really had a desk job, but I've died one day at a time all over the place.

I'm not really one to be on camera, I'd rather be writing songs.

I love the idea that you can create a world through song.

Stars looking at our planet, watching entropy and pain and maybe startin' to wonder how the chaos in our lives could pass as sane. I've been thinkin' 'bout the meaning of resistance of a world beyond our own and suddenly the infinite and penitent began to look like home.

Faith, hope, and love remain. But the greatest of these is love.

Inside all of us, we know the truth of life that there's something more than the next new cell phone or gadget or relationship and that our heart beats in time with the sunset.

There are tears that shine like a smile, sobbing like a sunrise for the truth.

The biggest problem facing our world today is a lack of hope and a lack of meaning. [It's] basically just a postmodern world in which there is no right or wrong, no better or worse.

Switchfoot is a surfing term… To switch your feet means to take a new stance facing the opposite direction. It's about change and movement, a different way of approaching life and music.

It's really hard to fit a complex idea into a 3-minute pop song. And when you're dealing with issues that you're passionate about, usually they have various levels. And within a poem, you can get around the issue of space, and in a song the same way, by simply leaving holes and alluding to what you're talking about.

Information has become king, whereas wisdom should be king and there is a big difference between the two.

Well, the funny thing is, you are never the same person that you were the day before.

If comparison is the thief of joy, then our culture is being robbed blind.

Let me know that you hear me, let me know Your touch, let me know that You love me, and let that be enough

Just as drowning cannot be equated with swimming, mere existence is not the same as abundant life. We have been offered a new way to live – a new way to be human.

Your faith is what you do daily, you can't separate your heart from your body and keep them both alive, they're almost the same thing.

If you can have a couple of tight friends that you can tell things to, that you can say, 'Hey, this is what I'm struggling with,' and then pray and talk about it, then that's an incredible thing.

I think despair and cynicism are two different things. On the flip side of hope is despair. Belief and doubt are the same thing, in that to believe something you have to actively doubt the opposite. And from my perspective, that's the deep end. You're dealing with the unknown; you're dealing with mystery.

There’s nothing that you can sell me that can make me happy.

I love a good pop song. I have no problem with the concept of doing that sort of thing. For me, it's usually what I'm inspired by, what I'm thinking about.

Please be slow to judge ‘brothers’ who have a different calling.

I think sometimes we can use spirituality as a vehicle to go closer to the things that frighten us and sometimes we can use it as a shield. I'm guilty of it too. I think spiritual words can do one or the other. Because when I hear people say, in a religion setting, 'Glory,' 'Praise the Lord,' 'Hallelujah,' but it doesn't mean anything, those are actually words that distance us from God, ironically enough.

I think that's the beauty of live music - creating from the destruction.

If you're leaving your family behind, you better believe in what you're singing.

Live rather than talk. Talk is cheap and the tabloids scream about it every day.

I used to think that great art happened without argument, and maybe that’s not the case. Maybe the things that are most important in this life, you have to fight for.

You wake up, you wake up, another day, you wake up, you wake up, traffic still moving at the same speed, our eyes looking at the same speed, our minds thinking at the same speed, I wanna see movement, I wanna see change. I wanna wake up for real. I wanna wake up. I wanna wake up. We were meant to live.

There are certain songs that I like to listen to at certain times of the day. For example, first thing in the morning I love listening to "Flamenco Sketches" off of Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.

As far as when I'm writing a song, I think I'm writing first and foremost for myself.

Music is admitted under the skin without permission.

I try to surf everyday or at least go for a walk on the beach if the waves are flat. The more I travel, the more I appreciate where I live and the ocean.

Surfing and music were incredible outlets for me when I was a kid. And there are some really tricky times when you're growing up and it's easy to make a wrong decision, even with a good family and community around you. Surfing and music kept me out of trouble.

I think surfing and music are both places of release and self expression where there are no rules, and you can find a different form of freedom that you can't anywhere else.

There are a lot of similarities between music and surfing. There's a rhythm to both of them and with sound waves and ocean waves, you see patterns, plus the breathing is all part of it.

Celebrity is a currency with an exchange rate almost as strong as anonymity.

There is a deeper portion of our being that we rarely allow others to see. Call it a soul maybe, this is the place that holds the most value. All else can drift but this. When this dies our body has no meaning.

For me, I want to create a environment for the songs to live in. So one song by itself only tells a piece of the story, but in the context of the album, more of the colors are revealed.

Music will always be judged by our subjective ears.

I simply want the music to to find its way to open-minded people.

I've always been fascinated with the strong emotional ties that music can have. A song can bring you back to a place or a season of life like no other art form can.