Steve Earle

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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