Steve Earle
14 quotes
Biography
Stephen Fain Earle is an American country, rock, and folk singer-songwriter. He began his career as a songwriter in Nashville.
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"You know, I'm not comfortable with people whose politics are static in a democracy."
"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."
"...introduced Doc to the miracle of morphine. From that very first shot it was as if he'd discovered the one vital ingredient that God had left out when He'd sent Doc kicking and screaming into the cold, cruel world."
"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."
"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."
"To me, religion is an agreement between a group of people about what God is. Spirituality is a one-on-one relationship."
"Poetry is the hardest thing that there is. It fascinates me, so I want to write more of it."
"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."
"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."