Quotes from Steve Earle

I promise you that I did not become an addict because of anything to do with the behavior of either of my parents. Everybody has to make their own choices.

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

I love e-books. I can carry the complete works of William Shakespeare around with me all the time. Just think about that. Whether I'm on an airplane or wherever. Being able to have a library in your back pocket basically is something I support.

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

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.

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

My politics were really radical when I was younger, and then I moderated like everyone else does when they start having kids.

The idea that murder victims' families are best served by continuing the cycle of violence is something that I consider to be not only a lie, but criminally negligent. You lie to victims' families when you tell them they're going to receive closure if they participate in the process and witness the execution of a human being.

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 am connected to the past in a way that keeps me going forward. 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now, and I never get tired of the view.

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

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.

Songwriters are expanding time rather than compressing time. My short stories tend to be old fashioned, with a beginning, middle and end.

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 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.

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

San Antonio is like a military town. It's like literally - when I was growing up there, there were five Air Force bases, plus Fort Sam Houston. I was always sort of near the military.