Quotes from Jeff Tweedy

Hey! I'm A Cherry Ghost!

I became a songwriter not when I composed that perfect couplet, or experienced the right amount of pain. It's when I realized that whatever I wrote, even if it meant gutting myself in front of strangers, letting all those raw emotions come flooding out, making a fool of myself with my own words, was exactly what I always wanted to do with my life.

learning how to disappear is the best way I've found to make my true self visible to myself and others.

Allowing something you've created to be undermined to a point where you can no longer believe in it or stand behind it feels suicidal to me.

If you were me, which I am,

I know it'll change, and I know that is has changed. But I still think it's a very satisfying medium, to put together a collection of songs and let them all live together, and hopefully talk to each other and hopefully make some sense out of why theyr're there. Just like we do.

Nobody makes good choices when they aren't aware they're making a choice.

if we all learn anything from being alive on this planet, it's that people will lie to you, especially about how much or little they care about you. And I would guess there's a lot more similarity in how we suffer than the way we experience joy.

I think I've finally stopped worrying about getting back from somewhere less comfortable—some place where I'm sure I'm going to be miserable. I believe I'm starting to be "okay" wherever I am. I think I'm ready to just say, "Let's go.

No work of art is ever finished; it can only be abandoned in an interesting place.

That's one of the problems with humans—that we can be talked out of loving something. That we can be talked out of loving something that we do, and we can be talked out of loving ourselves. Easily, unfortunately

I believe words contain worlds of words and meanings that are, more often than not, locked beneath the surface. Poetry is what happens when words are opened up, and those worlds within are made visible, and the music behind the words is heard. And songs do that, too, just in a different order.

You want words to burst into the room, demand your attention, and remind you how exciting things can be. You have a responsibility to challenge yourself to use them in a way that is more vivid than your normal daily usage.

That's one of the problems with humans—that we can be talked out of loving something. That we can be talked out of loving something that we do, and we can be talked out of loving ourselves.

everything you find enticing about being able to circumvent your "blocked" state is also a product of your imagination. When I feel like I'm stuck, I try to put myself back in touch with the reality of the situation. There are no rules AND I make them!

When I feel like I'm stuck, I try to put myself back in touch with the reality of the situation. There are no rules AND I make them!

The people who seem the most like geniuses are not geniuses. They're just more comfortable with failing. They try more and they try harder than other people, and so they stumble onto more songs. It's pretty simple. People who don't pick up a pencil never write a poem. People who don't pick up a guitar and try every day don't write a whole lot of great songs. If you don't ask, the answer is always no.

This is the real gift of human language and our desire to connect: that it works.

That's not the same sound someone else is going to make. We discount that as something we're supposed to measure against other people's imaginations, and that's a squandered gift.

However much I disdained the notion of a drug-addled rock star, some part of me still believed that creation myth, that you have to suffer. And then I realized that everyone suffers. Therefore, anyone who creates art can, if they choose, focus on their suffering and say that's where it comes from.

You can't quit because there's a Beyoncé in the world. You can't quit because you went to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and realized that everyone on stage knows more about music than you ever will.

I believe that poetry came into existence because people needed it—if it were easy to write down and record things without poetry, we wouldn't have needed poetry. But for some reason we did.

way counselors would shut someone down when they started arguing that they didn't have to listen, they were going to do it their own way. The counselors would point out that "Your best thinking is what put you here.

Don't we want more than anything to make something that reflects who we are and how we feel honestly enough that someone else might feel seen or acknowledged, and less alone?