John Prine Quotes
I could never teach a class on songwriting. I'd tell them to goof off and find a good hideout.
Quotes to Explore
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Men whose sense of taste is destroyed by sickness, sometimes think honey sour. A diseased eye does not see many things which do exist, and notes many things which do not exist. The same thing frequently takes place with regard to the force of words, when the critic is inferior to the writer.
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People who live in glass houses... have to answer the door.
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The first single I released, 'Anything Goes,' is probably one of the best-written songs I've heard in a long time. It takes somebody knowing who you are. Sometimes writers know who an artist is and what they want to say and how they sing. I will never be opposed to cutting a song if somebody nails my life and what I'm going through.
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When you're 21, you think, 'Oh God, when I'm 36, oh God, that's nearly 40 and I'll look really old and wrinkly by then.' And actually, I quite like the way I look.
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Fracking is an incredible risk to the human race, I don't know why they even thought of doing it.
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The imperial province should have a university, the prefectures should have colleges, and the counties should have day schools.
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I just feed off the energy of the audience.
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There is a clear link between illegal migrants coming to Europe and the spread of terrorism.
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It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.
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I want to be like Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, and John Lennon... but I want to stay alive.
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And that had a powerful appeal, particularly to those who had been denied the choice to stay on at school, to go to university, to be something else, other than going down the pit.
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Even if you have a big tune, live crowds can get sick of it. It's not just about the song but also the staying power and if people have connected with it in a certain way. I know that the tracks I put more emotion and depth into are the ones that have the staying power in clubs.
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I haven't gotten to do the leading man thing, so I would love to do that!
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You may think it was a very little thing, and in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was a most important incident in my life. I could scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work, I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and thoughtful boy from that time.
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I've worked with very few directors who've asked of me what I asked of myself.
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I'm sick of people imposing cultural references and influences on me, but I'm not sick of people talking about my age.
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I hasten to say to snobs from the Surrey pine-and-sand country that no invention since the corn plaster or the electric toothbrush has brought greater balm to the extremities of the senior golfer than the golfmobile, a word that will have to do for want of a better.
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One bad habit often spoils a dozen good ones.
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I still go to church occasionally. I went the other day and found peace.
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You can't tell a good story without conflict - the story can't be beautiful or meaningful. We're taught to run from conflict, and it's robbing us of some really good stories.
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The degree of tolerance attainable at any moment depends on the strain under which society is maintaining its cohesion.
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If there were a map of the solar system, but instead of stars it showed people and their degrees of separation, my star would be the one you had to travel the most light-years from to get to his. You would die getting to him.
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For me, songwriting starts with a melody. When a musician plays a chord progression, either the words and vocal melody come to me, or they don't. That's how I determine who to write with. It works, or it doesn't.
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I could never teach a class on songwriting. I'd tell them to goof off and find a good hideout.
