Best 96 quotes of Steve Earle on MyQuotes

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.

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.

Back then, the business depended on bohemians. ... They needed Kristofferson and Roger Miller ..It was the tail end of something...the last Tin Pan Alley. ...and we were the night shift! They gave us keys, because they knew the best songs weren't written in daylight.... We got our keys taken away several times...me and Guy Clark.

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.

Bob Dylan emerged from nowhere, like an alien. And that was just the start.

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

By the time I wrote those first three songs for his new CD ... I wanted to push the poetics as hard as I could push them, and not decide the songs were finished until I committed them to whatever the recording format was. I went through drafts right up until I recorded every single one of them.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Having a child at 55... that's optimism.

He's the real deal. Eric Taylor was one of my heroes and teachers when I started playing around Houston in the early 1970s.

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.

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

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

I don't get in vote in whether or how people remember me when I'm gone. It's really dangerous to sit around and worry about it too much, for me. It gets me way too in myself to worry about what people are going to think about me when I'm not around anymore.

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

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 don't spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, trying to compare how many records I've sold or how much money I've made.

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 don't type fast. I type with three fingers - two on one hand, and I only get one going on the other. I think my thumb's in there, but I'm not sure. I may be no better than an orangutan when it comes to that.

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

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

I'm not a Democrat; I'm something well to the left of a Democrat, but I'm just realistic about the system.

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.

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

I'm trying to make records where people don't feel cheated. Nashville has been guilty of insulting the Country Music audience for years and years.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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