Quotes from David Berman

I always had a background belief in God. In other words, instinctually I've never doubted that we are not alone.

I guess when I was younger, I'd have assumed that in 2008 music would be full of great writers following in the tradition of the young great writers of the '60s and '70s, but it hasn't turned out that way, or at least there are no other writers around that I look at and think: 'Wow, I'm outclassed, I need to get out of this business.'

I believe that intermittent live performance has cut short the writing lives of touring musicians.

Nashville only thrives when talented people from out of town move here from somewhere else.

I've never been from a certain group. I've always reserved a space for myself where I'm unattached to any group, but the part of Judaism that I really take away, that means something to me, is the part about community.

Silver Jews was always a coolection of old friends. Uncoolection.

In the beginning, it was meant to be like a faceless art piece. Then I did the first record and it received enough notice to satisfy my needs. I questioned the procedure out of fear. The Silver Jews was never meant to be recreated live.

In 2004, I don't think any Silver Jews fan was probably expecting another record.

When I started the band, the name 'Silver Jews' had no literal meaning - it was just an abstraction.

If I believed in fate I'd be very curious why I picked the name Silver Jews.

The songs of mine that don't work, the ones that I wouldn't consider playing live for instance, fail to integrate their idiosyncracies. It's not that they fail because they're boring, but because they overreach.

Intellectuals and creative people, once they start talking about God they get put into this other category: 'I don't go to people's music like that to understand my life.'

People younger than me trust me. People my age do not. They think I'm up to something. And I've often felt this.

I try every day and every night to find a movie or a TV show that I can watch, but I just can't make it past ten minutes of anything.

I bought a guitar when I was twenty. But I didn't write a song until I was 25 or 26. I never learned to play others songs. I learned to play my own songs while I was learning how to make them better.

I've never been a big movie person, but I used to watch movies regularly in my life, and sometime in the '90s I just stopped. I certainly never was an educated moviegover.

I was 29 or 30 when I felt sure of what I was doing, but not fully identifying as a songwriter until I was 37.

I was much further along as a poet than as a songwriter, but the songs were getting more attention. They were doing what art is supposed to do, mixing it up with people.

In a lot of ways, I wouldn't be an artist in another time. I need to exist in a time where high and low art mix easily.

I always loved bands with mystique.

I hear luxury brand names, I cringe.

You don't meet too many actors in Nashville.

Natalie Maines has a voice for the centuries.

My faith was undermined by the same sort of things that make people skeptics of religion in general. Part of it was, there was no real place for me in Judaism. Maybe if there was I would've hung in there, but I was attracted to the social-justice aspects of Judaism, and I was attracted to the prophets.