Musician Quotes

I was never trying to write a hit. I was just trying to write good songs and get a message out, and it was my great good fortune to be popular.

I think the biggest problem in the world is that we have a generation of young people, and maybe two, who don't think it's going to get any better.

I think more about the family now. That's an interesting progression for me.

I just play the guitar and write songs.

I get an awful lot of fan mail, and I read all that I can.

I don't want to just entertain people. I want to touch them.

Heck, I'm no Henry Mancini or Michel Legrand. I just play the guitar and write songs.

Divorce is just the most awful thing in the world.

At times I've got a really big ego. But I'll tell you the best thing about me. I'm some guy's dad; I'm some little gal's dad. When I die, if they say I was Annie's husband and Zachary John and Anna Kate's father, boy, that's enough for me to be remembered by. That's more than enough.

I know I'm incapable of orchestrating an entire film.

We must begin to make what I call 'conscious choices,' and to really recognize that we are the same. It's from that place in my heart that I write my songs.

I believe that we are here for each other, not against each other. Everything comes from an understanding that you are a gift in my life - whoever you are, whatever our differences.

Our ages ranged from 22, down to 18, and we had a 6 month contract to go to Bogata, Columbia. And of course, it was during the depression, we were still with our parents, and things were still pretty tough on them back in the United States.

Oh yeah, that was the thing to do at that time. This was before the new wave of bebop started.

Now, I'm the only living member of that group. There was the six of us originally and they're now all gone.

The band would play on the night off for the local hotel bands and we'd back all the different acts. So I'd been advised by good friends of mine to come back to Hawaii. Oh, I loved Honolulu, playing at a place right on the beach at Waikiki!

Writing, overall, has never been what I'd call fun. It's fulfilling. It doesn't come real easy for me.

Turn off the TV and start digging around for information that's not from a corporation trying to make money.

This is how it has been since time began: If you want to make something really worthwhile and true, then you have to suffer for it.

Some guy refuses to fight and we call that the sin, but he's standing up for what he believes in and that seems pretty damned American to me.

My guitar is really tempermental. I don't give up on it though, I'm close to my guitar!

Most of the music you hear on the radio today is developed for making money. It doesn't feel true or honest. You can feel it in the music.

Making the record was tons of fun, the most fun I've ever had.

If something bothers me, it bothers me for a long time until I find a way to work it out. Music provided me with a means of working things out.

I've always written about things that cause me to feel something.

I've always been aware of having feelings that were pretty intense at times. I imagine most people have had that, or they wouldn't be human.

I was mainly influenced by the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, and others like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash.

I never set out to write songs about the world around me... it just kind of came about as a result of paying more attention to things.

I honestly don't listen to a lot of music - I spend so much time working at my own music.

I don't know what other people are like, I haven't been able to crawl inside anybody else.