Jon Foreman Quotes

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.

The beauty of what I read in the gospel is the intimacy of what we're called to, that there's no middle man.

Happiness is like peeing in your pants. Everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth.

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

If it doesn't break your heart it isn't love

Music is mere tuning a song with words; to some degree you have a beautiful endeavor of cosigning God's blank checks and you're actually co-creating. You're certainly not the creator with the capital C, but you're embarking on an endeavor, you're using the building blocks that have been given to you by the author of time and space.

If you truly love someone, you're going to be pure because true love comes from God, and God tells us to remain pure. That's good enough for me.

I do have an obligation, however, a debt that cannot be settled by my lyrical decisions. My life will be judged by my obedience, not my ability to confine my lyrics to this box or that.

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

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.

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.

Music will always be judged by our subjective ears.

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.

Music is what I do; Christ is why I do it.

The easiest thing to do is throw a rock. It's a lot harder to create a stained glass window. I used to get upset at the people who threw rocks but now I'd rather spend my time building the stained glass windows.

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.

My challenge is, do not run away from the hard questions. Truly ask yourself what's worth living for in this life.

I’ve never used music to sell my faith and I’ve never used faith to sell my music. I think they are both intrinsic parts of who I am. We’ve always tried to define our music outside of genres…what is a genre? A genre’s a cage or a box and for us our music is best with fangs and some claws running free in the wild.

The life, when we're aware of beauty, is kind of a bittersweet thing, it's a transient reminder of eternal beauty, which someday we will be face to face with.

Every day of your life, you change the world. Absolutely, yes, we're out to change the world. I mean, you change it whether you like it or not. You wake up and you talk to the grocer. You either kick your dog or you pet him. There's a million decisions you have every day where you change the world.

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

I'm learning how much I have to learn, how little I know, how fragile my understanding is. I'm learning to be thankful and patient; today is all that we will ever have in this life. If we spend our time obsessing with the future or regretting the past then we will never live. Tomorrow will always be tomorrow and yesterday cannot be changed. The wise man seeks God in the now and brings both his regrets and fears before Him. The freedom that we are offered is truly amazing: to live, today, free from even our own fallen desires. This is where I want to be.

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

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.

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.

I look around and I know there's a lot in the world that I want to see changed - and I want to be a part of something bigger than myself. I want to see things change, in myself as much as in the world around me.

The unasked questions are the most dangerous to answer.

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.

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 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.

My dying planet needs to see what the body of Christ looks like.

Darkness cannot cast out darkness. You need a light for that. Fear cannot cast out fear. You're gonna need hope for that death warrants more death. But I believe life wants more life and I'm convinced that the greatest weapon we've got is LOVE! And maybe, in a world full of fighters, in a world imploding with hate, maybe to be a lover, you gotta be a fighter. Maybe that's the biggest fight, the only fight worth fighting, the fight you're gonna be in for the rest of your life.

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.

All music is worship. It just depends on what you’re worshipping.

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.

The shadow proves the sunshine.

There’s a time to be silent - to build up a reason to sing again.

For me, even if I'm not a fan of the band in general or maybe it's not the style of music I want to put on for my daughter and me when we're waking up in the morning, there's always something that I can learn from it. And I think those are the things that are surprising.

It's a great thing to see the strength of simplicity.

In my opinion, the best way of showing someone the best way to live life is by living it.

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

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.

I'm continually wrestling with the idea that there are certain things in this world that simply don't fit. The idea that I have this longing for beauty and truth, and yet I'm also attracted to things that are very dark the lies that exist within me and outside of me.

We were meant to live for so much more.

I'm always thinking about songs, I'm thinking of life maybe a little bit more lyrically than a computer programmer or someone like that.

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.

Our world spins upside down and sometimes we have to lose our grip on the things we value in this life in order to grab on to true life.

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