Steve Earle Quotes

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.

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 have a low tolerance for mediocrity in music and life. I'm into pain and joy and the in-between doesn't interest me.

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

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.

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

Every day on Earth is another chance to get it right.

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

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

What's important is you wake up in the morning and something doesn't exist, and when you finish you day's work something is in the world that wasn't there before.

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

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

The reason music became so powerful to our generation is that it's art you can consume in your car, and we were driving around a lot.

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.

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

I'm not a racist, but I do have to work at not being a racist, because of where I grew up.

People hate good books to be over. I wish I could write a 700-page book.

Maybe I'm not as big a star as Bruce Springsteen because I'm not as good. I don't know. It doesn't matter. I still have an audience of a certain size. I think it's one of the things I'm luckiest.

I do not believe Tony Blair was a fundamentally good man who went bad. I believe he was evil in the first place.

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.

I have no doubt in mind that I justify the space I take up in the world.

I'm a very disciplined person when it comes to my work, but discipline can't save m from being a drug addict.

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.

You know I ain't never prayed before 'Cause it always seemed to me That prayin's the same as beggin' Lord, I don't take no charity.

Greg Trooper writes great songs, including one of my very favorite songs in the world, Little Sister. On top of all that, there's his voice - an instrument I have coveted for 15 years.

I don't separate writing songs from poetry and short fiction. In the area where I work in my house, there's a word processor and a guitar.

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

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.

Critics are notoriously liberal with their use of the term 'genius'.

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

From the moment [Bob] Dylan arrived as a songwriter, he was [so] much better than everybody else around.

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.

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

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

I'm supposed to make people cry, but not by manipulating.

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

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.

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

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.

Woody Guthrie was what folks who don't believe in anything would call an anomaly.

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.

I have a theory that the people who cook in jails are British chefs.

Bob Dylan is one of the very few people in the history of popular music who you can unquestionably apply that word [genius] to.

I had everything I need to get me killed.

I make an embarrassing amount of money for a borderline Marxist, just by selling 100,000 records. I don't sell millions of records, and I don't need to.

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 just had a child on purpose at age 56, I'm pretty f---ing optimistic.

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

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