Jon Foreman Quotes

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

I wanna be a part of the generation that throws out money, throws out time, throws out all that we are against something bigger than ourselves.

It’s a good thing my parents named me Jon because that’s what everyone calls me.

For me songs are born out of the gray space, the things I don't fully understand, the things that I can't put in my pocket.

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

Life is a battlefield. I don't have enough time on the planet to play games.

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.

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

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.

Why is it that everything is collapsing if gravity is pulling us together?

Usually for me, the melodic structures come out in the water and the lyrical ideas could come from a book I'm reading.

The song can be a little bit more of the mystery and leave the whole thing open ended. But there's something really gratifying about saying exactly what you mean.

Pain is a common emotion in many of my songs mainly because I often don't know other ways to express it adequately. In my songs I wrestle with the things that I don't understand.

The truth will set you free, but it's only slightly less scary than hell and a whole lot harder to get there.

I like to write on airplanes... that forced meditation time when you have nothing else to do, so your mind is allowed to go to places it wouldn't otherwise go.

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.

The unasked questions are the most dangerous to answer.

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

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.

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

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

Life tears at us and scars us as children so we adopt facades and masks to hide this part of us, to keep this sacred part of ourselves from the pain.

I began thinking about the idea of a 24 hour concert. What if you tied songs to certain hours of the day - creating a 24 hour world of lyric and melody. So that was the inspiration for this project.

Music is a handshake where I, as a songwriter, am only part of the equation. I love that, the fact that you can make the song your own.

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

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

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.

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.

Music will always be judged by our subjective ears.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Music is admitted under the skin without permission.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I don't think we can solve the outside problemsuntil we solve the ones within.