Jason Isbell Quotes
When somebody asks me what a song or a line is about, I feel like I'm not done writing it yet.
Quotes to Explore
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So people think I'm lying about my age all the time? It's the records that are wrong. I've never told anyone how old I am. The minute they ask me, I say 'That's none of your business.' So that means I've never once lied about my age. Now that's true!
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The only difference between a dead skunk lying in the road and a dead lawyer lying in the road is that there are skid marks around the skunk.
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The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer.
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I've always made sequels, even when I was making Super 8 movies if the audience liked it.
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This little hobbit saves the world. The wizard kills the dragon and saves the town. So many people connect to that character; it doesn't matter if it's an elf or a hobbit or a dwarf. It doesn't matter. They're human in their heart and soul.
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And it was then that I realized wow, I'm able to write lyrics and sing and stuff like that.
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In any work you do, you can be profound one minute, and then you be superficial the next, and you can be smart and insightful and then insipid. There can be room for all that.
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I do two cups of coffee with a little bit of raw sugar and soy creamer, and then I do a bowl of plain oatmeal with walnuts and blueberries. Now, if I could do what I really wanted to do with my life, every morning I would have a salami-and-cheese omelet with hash browns and a buttermilk biscuit - and pancakes. But my heart would explode.
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The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
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Your mind is what makes everything else work.
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I had these experiences as a kid; I remember certain things happening in school that were horrifying that I would see, certain things of violence or certain things of cruelty, but around that, something might happen afterwards to cause everyone to laugh, and that always blew me away.
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The roundness of life's design may be a sign that there is a presence beyond ourselves.
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Albania is going through a deep crisis because it lacks the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and freedom of the media. I don't think if we stop protesting the problem is solved.
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People stayed with me and worked extra hard for me because I could see the potential in them – I'm not so sure they could see the potential in me.
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I wasn't a very good student in elementary school and had a hard time with reading and writing.
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People have given me the freedom and believe in me enough to say if I want to do these things that I will find a way to make it work. I don't know if they think I'm crazy, drug damaged or just an old weirdo.
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One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing. I did that with 'World's Fair,' as with all of them. The inventions of the book come as discoveries.
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I never attended a creative writing class in my life. I have a horror of them; most writers groups moonlight as support groups for the kind of people who think that writing is therapeutic. Writing is the exact opposite of therapy.
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Once you open up the Pandora's box of race and gender... you're never done.
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I went through withdrawal when I got out of graduate school. It's what you learn, what you think. That's all that counts.
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I love writing songs with people, which is about really taking risks, throwing yourself over the falls and really seeing what you're made of and seeing how it sticks. Seeing how others react to it, and seeing also how it can become a melody and how it can really take off from your experience. It's a way of seeing life unfold on the page before me.
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You know what they're writing about Baby you know what they're writing about It's a thing called love down through the ages Makes you wanna cry sometimes Makes you feel like you wanna lay down and die sometimes Makes you high sometimes But when you really get in it lifts you right up.
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In junior high, I really wanted to be popular. Suddenly there were parties with boys, and I wanted to be part of that. There was a group of girls, and I wanted to be friends with them.
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When somebody asks me what a song or a line is about, I feel like I'm not done writing it yet.
