John Prine Quotes
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I became a recording artist before I knew it. And I just - when I would listen to my old records, I'd just hear this young, extremely nervous fella that that made me want to run out of the room, you know, rather than listen to what he had to say.
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I'm not good at remembering things, in general.
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I like doing chores.
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If you listen to people talk, when people actually talk, they talk in melodies. If they get angry, their voice rises, and it's more of a staccato thing. When they ask for something, they're real sweet. It's all music.
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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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When I was a boy, my family used to watch a lot of Laurel and Hardy.
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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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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'm making my own record, it's real work for me.
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I used to read a lot of Steinbeck, and I admired Roger Miller and Bob Dylan.
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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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I found it easier to make up songs than to learn other people's songs.
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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 grew up in Chicago, but I spent a lot of time down in Kentucky, and Kentucky was about 20 years behind the life that was in Chicago.
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After cancer, I ain't scared of nothing.
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In high school, I was a poor student.
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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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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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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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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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I always feel like every song is the last song.
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For me, there's nothing like performing.