John Prine Quotes
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When I was a boy, my family used to watch a lot of Laurel and Hardy.
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'The Ways of a Woman in Love' is one of my very favorite early Johnny Cash songs. I like the way the lyric talks about the character walking by the girl's house and wishing he was the one in her arms.
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I like doing chores.
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My sense of humor has saved me more than a couple of times in my life.
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I can blame a lot of things for not writing songs, but cancer isn't one of them.
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Howie Epstein was a kind, patient, and extremely talented musician. He took two years out of his life and dedicated his undivided attention to the making of two of my records. Those records changed my life thanks to Howie.
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For me, there's nothing like performing.
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I don't like to see Christmas trees torn down.
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I try to write about things that actually happened so that I know it's real before I put it down on paper.
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After cancer, I ain't scared of nothing.
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I was a mailman walking in the snow six days a week, 12-hour days. Every two weeks, I'd get a check for $228.
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'Sam Stone' is a song about futility.
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When you're singing somebody else's songs, it's just pure joy to me.
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I was in the Army in the 1960s. I didn't go to Vietnam. I went to Germany, where I drank beer. But I did have an empathy with the soldiers in Vietnam.
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When I turned 40, I invited Johnny Cash to my party, even though I knew there was gonna be 200 people roasting a pig and wild as can be. He didn't come, but the next day, I got a bowl of chili he'd made and a note that said, 'John, I'd love to come to your party, but that would mean I would have to leave my house.'
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When I'm making my own record, it's real work for me.
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You get to thinking that because you've written 50 or 100 songs, you think maybe you know how to do it. But when they're not coming along, you're just as in the dark as you ever were. When they're coming along, there's nothing to it. Sometimes it's so easy, it's like you're a court stenographer.
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Because of my song 'Sam Stone,' a lot of people thought I was interested in writing protest songs. Writing protest songs always struck me as patting yourself on the back.
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I think it shows when you have to work too hard on a song.
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I don't concern myself with where I fit in. I just keep my head down and keep doing whatever it is I'm going.
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In the Army, I was very good at avoiding my job!
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The best way to write a song is to think of something else and then the song kind of creeps in.
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I think of the Bible as an unauthorized biography.
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After a couple bouts with cancer and everything, black cats are nothin', you know?