Steve Earle Quotations

I don't really think in terms of obstacles. My biggest obstacle is always myself.

We're so terrified of death in Western culture that we have to make up a myth of an afterlife. I think there's something to be said for living your life very mindful of the fact that you're going to die because I think you carry yourself differently. It doesn't have to be this big, negative bummer.

The idea that murder victims' families are best served by continuing the cycle of violence is something that I consider to be not only a lie, but criminally negligent. You lie to victims' families when you tell them they're going to receive closure if they participate in the process and witness the execution of a human being.

The human race survived the Inquisition. We can survive. It's like the Anne Frank quote: 'In spite of everything, I still believe that people are basically good at heart.' Given what happened to her, it's one of the miracles of the world that she said that.

My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I'm killing somebody.

They say death and taxes are the only things that are inevitable. The truth is, you can not pay your taxes. I've done it, and there's consequences, but it can be done. Death you're not going to get out of, and you kind of got to deal with it.

It amazes me that the most Christian funerals are the most barbaric funeral rites of passage that are celebrated anywhere in the world.

Fundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion too.

The singer-songwriter has always played music that was stylistically rooted in the '30s and the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. But the fact of the matter is that none of us remember the Depression firsthand.

Making art in America is sort of a political statement in and of itself. It's not the best environment for that sometimes.

To me, religion is an agreement between a group of people about what God is. Spirituality is a one-on-one relationship.

Actually, in its purest form, Islam is incredibly tolerant. That makes what's going on in the world really bizarre.

Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.

America's criminal justice system isn't known for rehabilitation. I'm not sure that, as a society, we are even interested in that concept anymore.

If there is such a thing as a workaholic, I'm it, and that's what passes for leisure.

I love baseball. I'll probably end up one of those old farts who go to spring training in Florida every year and drive from game to game all day.

I don't believe that songwriting has to be profound, but I truly believe that it's a crime for you to go outta your way for it not to be.

I grew up counterculture. I'm essentially a hippie, and I'm essentially a folkie.

Me, I'm spiritually retarded, I need to be knee deep in water with a fly rod in my hands, that's about as close to God as I get.

My son was diagnosed with autism. He's OK, he makes eye contact, but he doesn't talk. He needs eight hours a day of very intensive school, and you wouldn't even believe me if I told you how much it costs.

If I can get Me out of the way, I can do anything.

All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It's part of learning the craft.

I mainly read non-fiction, and that's probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don't know.

My dad was in a wheelchair and on oxygen for the last few years of his life.

The creative core of New York has never been native New Yorkers; it's people from all over the world.

In New York, I'm around a lot of the reasons I started playing music in the first place. I live right behind Matt Umanov Guitars. I live on the street that Suze Rotolo and Bob Dylan were walking down on the album cover. I recognize the history.

The drama teacher that I had in high school, back in Texas, was the only teacher who didn't kick me out of his class. He turned me on to 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.' I had picked up Dylan with 'Bringing It All Back Home,' and he turned me on to the first couple of albums, which I hadn't heard.

My audience is, you know, pinkos in big cities.

I've never known of Wal-Mart to be a good neighbor in any town it's ever moved into.

Poetry is the hardest thing that there is. It fascinates me, so I want to write more of it.

I don't think I'm a political songwriter as much as I am just a political person. I think it's in my fabric.

I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now, and I never get tired of the view.

You can go out and find ways to make your own record and get it out there now. If you really want to, you can be heard. Keep things simple. Learn to go out and play solo. That's a really really good thing to learn, if you're a singer-songwriter. Don't be dependent on a band because you may not always be able to afford one.

Every country that's ever been the most powerful country in the world ceases to be the most powerful country in the world at some point.

Funerals are a pagan rite. There's not any doubt about it.

I still write more songs about girls than anything else.

At home, I'm lucky if I can write three or four hours before the phone starts ringing and the kids want to go to soccer.

I think it's obvious that democracy is something that is contagious, and it always has been.

I'm from Texas. I hitchhiked to Tennessee when I was 19 years old, and it is really beautiful in Tennessee.

Music was very influential on me as a kid.

My spiritual system is 12-step programs. That's the only one I've ever had. I didn't have one before that.

There's a long tradition of people from the South living in New York City.

You see things differently at 40 than you do at 31. Especially if you got to 40 the way I did.

As much as I'd like to think and as much as people mistakenly think my audience is blue collar people in the heart of America, my audience is basically, in the States, an NPR audience. I play college towns in the summer because that's who comes to see me.

I promise you that I did not become an addict because of anything to do with the behavior of either of my parents. Everybody has to make their own choices.

I'm a country singer, and I'm comfortable with that. But why does a country singer have to play only on country radio or a rock singer only on a rock station? I still don't understand why it's that big a deal.

I am connected to the past in a way that keeps me going forward. Every leap forward that I make is by reaching back and firmly getting a footing in the past, and pushing forward as hard as I can.

I love e-books. I can carry the complete works of William Shakespeare around with me all the time. Just think about that. Whether I'm on an airplane or wherever. Being able to have a library in your back pocket basically is something I support.

Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.

Gregory Corso used to get really pissed when people called Bob Dylan a 'poet.' After writing poetry for a few years, I can understand that.

I don't care what's happening in the mainstream of country music. I haven't in a long time.

I think the criticism that I take to heart is from other writers that I respect.

I'm used to writing stories with a beginning a middle and an end in four minutes.

I've been a serial husband, and I've done it badly every time.

I've never made a record that I'm ashamed of.

My politics were really radical when I was younger, and then I moderated like everyone else does when they start having kids.

Sonnets are guys writing in English, imitating an Italian song form. It was a form definitely sung as often as it was recited.

Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don't have any trouble being heard.

You know, I'm not comfortable with people whose politics are static in a democracy.

Becoming interested in poetics got me interested in theater. Theater is supposed to be poetry, you know, before it's anything else. It just doesn't fly if it isn't musical.

I love 'Harry Potter.' I love those books. That started because I lived with a woman who had kids who were, like, 10 and 7 when they moved in with me.

I'm constantly warning people that are involved in my life that I can go busk and make a living. I can make my rent in New York City in the subway, I promise, if I'm forced to.

San Antonio is like a military town. It's like literally - when I was growing up there, there were five Air Force bases, plus Fort Sam Houston. I was always sort of near the military.

You can listen to carpenters talk for hours in Ireland. The people have a relationship to words that I don't think you will run into anyplace in the world.

If they're as committed to mine safety as they say they are, then they need to incorporate these things into their bill. These are things that shouldn't be argued over.

But it's the first time I've ever been married sober,

From my side, we'll have the best field ever. The response has been tremendous. When the event was troubled, then continued with closer ties to the Navy, it seemed to increase everyone's desire to be here. This is the strongest entry list ever for Coronado.

I think we have passed a meaningful piece of legislation here today that's certainly going to enhance mine safety. We think that the additional inspections will certainly improve mine safety.

I think we all care just as much about our coal miners as we do our deer and turkey.

I think the singer/songwriter genre is going to be like bluegrass and jazz. You can make a living at it, but it's not part of the musical mainstream anymore.

To me, this is about sticking to my guns and keeping my word to the artists involved.

Before, I recorded in specific blocks of time. That's changed. Now everything revolves around making music for me. And it feels good.

Even though I talk about them every day, I was still incredibly nervous and shaken. It was a stressful situation.

At that point one of the nurses and I reached for the button at the same time and delivered one shock.

pushing the edge of the envelope to attract attention, but it's the wrong subject at the wrong time. He's been going nowhere fast for a long time, and while this may draw fleeting attention, it won't save his faltering career.

It was kind of crazy luck that it was me with the device and two nurses that were three of the first four on the scene.

I've had more people come up and thank me and say they never thought they'd see these cars again,

That money was put in that fund for miners who are suffering and dying from black lung, and that's what the intent was and that's what it should be used for.

I'm not trying to get myself deported or something. In a big way this is the most pro-American record I've ever made.

I feel like I owe my audience something. They feed my kids. And I really like my job, a lot.

We're Americans. I don't consider us to be evil, I just don't think we know any better. We're a really young culture. We're hillbillies, and the rest of the world sees us that way. I travel all over the world, and probably the only worse rednecks than us are the Australians. And they're an even younger country.

Politics has always been in my music. Anybody who doesn't understand how political "Copperhead Road" is isn't listening very well.

I really believe that if I make records that are indispensable to my audience, they'll go out and spend money to buy them, even if they've already downloaded them. If they can afford it. If they can't, I'd rather they be able to download it than not get it at all.

What songwriting does better than almost anything is empathy - it's incredibly empathetic. The reason people sat around in bars when they were bummed out and listened to country songs is because it made them feel better in the long run.

I think the music business is changing. Artists that don't want to tour and just want to collect royalty checks and stay home are not going to be able to do that.

I can deal with conservatives in a democracy. With real conservatives, I don't agree with them, but I understand why they believe what they believe and I believe they're being honest with me about it.

My audience doesn't agree with me on everything, but I love my audience, because they're totally okay with us having a dialogue.

It's incredibly irresponsible to allow victims' family members to witness executions.

Songwriters are expanding time rather than compressing time. My short stories tend to be old fashioned, with a beginning, middle and end.

What saves me from being a drug addict is sort of the opposite. It's me realizing that I don't really control anything.

I love theater. I go all the time. It's one of the reasons I moved to New York. But I understand that I have limited range as an actor. I can only play people who talk like me.

Records are only one-dimensional. Even film is only one-dimensional. That's why music and live theatre is so important, because it's not the same thing. A recording is just a record of part of the experience, but it's not the whole experience.

Or you can be like the Soviet Union, start out with ideals, and end up ceasing to exist.

I'm one of the few people that I know that sings better than they did 20 years ago.

My gift's primarily literary. That being said, I ended up a musician. By the time I made the bluegrass record...I'm more impressed with myself when I push the envelope musically than I am when I push it literality.

You make decisions, and that's what separates art from some other pop music. It doesn't mean that you can't make an embarrassing amount of money, for a borderline Marxist, doing something that you love, but it does mean that this huge pool of money that was out there when I started making records in the '80s is gone.

I wasn't raised to not write about issues, and I'm just living in really politically charged times. You know, I'd rather write songs about girls, but it's just hard to do.

My main area of activism is the death penalty, and it will continue to be once this crisis is over with.

I'm not going to waste a second feeling sorry for myself because I'm not a bigger star than I am. I can walk down the street in most places in the world and I still drive really nice cars.

When you're really bummed out, the last thing you want to hear is up-tempo and positive. And it lets you know that you're not alone, that somebody has hurt before. It works the same way with chick songs as it does with political songs. When you hear somebody singing about these things, you know that you're not alone, that somebody else is suspicious of what's going on around us in the world. So you don't feel like you're crazy, and you feel like you might be able to make a difference.