Quotes from John Mellencamp

I think Roosevelt had four terms, didn't he? I think we should go back to that, and we should go back to four years for a senator, four years for a congressman, and I think we'd see a huge change in our society.

If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed, and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other's problems.

Regret should be handled swiftly, and you shouldn't hold onto it. People spend their entire lives regretting what they didn't do and what they should've done. Hey, man, you did what you did.

My thought was I should try to stick with names that people may recognize like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Hoagy Carmichael, so if somebody cared to research, they would find a wealth of material.

I don't want to be a politician. I don't like politics. It's petty; it fights dirty.

I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians.

When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.

I need a long and lingering death to make sure that I have time to have a deathbed conversion.

Do I think it's OK to fight authority as long as you're only talking about the high school teacher? No.

There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands.

Most people in life, give up too early.

I've just been fortunate to havehad a lot of hit records, though Human Wheels doesn't qualify as a hit record-but it's really the best single I've ever had.

I think it's ridiculous to try to sell records to teenagers, because teenagers don't buy my records. And there ain't that many teenagers out there in the marketplace.

they say life goes on long after the thrill of living

Back in the '80s and '90s, when there was still a record business, there was pressure on anyone who was fortunate to have a few hits on a major label to continue that success.

When you live life for yourself it's hard on everyone. And that hasn't changed. For me, if anything, it's gotten worse.

The CD, it should be noted, was born out of greed. It was devised to prop up record sales on the expectation of people replenishing their record collections with CDs of albums they had already purchased.

Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the English invasion, I think country music got pretty far away from rock n' roll.

Radio was my friend after 'Jack & Diane' and 'Hurts So Good.'

I wish my grandmother and grandfather were still alive, because they were able to keep me grounded.

When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally.

Take 'Jack and Diane.' I was so disgusted with people thinking the line 'Hold on to sixteen as long as you can' meant to stay a teenager forever. What I meant was keep doing whatever makes you feel alive.

A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song.

Don't ever lose that innocent laughter, don't let time take that away