Quotes from John Mellencamp

There are a lot of actors who try to get records made and try to make record deals, and everybody goes, 'Ugh.' It used to be expected in the entertainment business. I mean look at Sinatra, Bing Crosby. All these guys started out as singers.

One quality of a good songwriter is to be vague. A vague notion, a vague image, but enough to give the listener the opportunity to make more out of what's being said than is there. That's the great thing about Bob Dylan's songs: We the listeners have made more out of them than he ever intended.

It sounds funny, but I always try to keep an open mind about what I'm writing about. Sometimes I squeak my opinions in there, but generally I don't. I try to be objective about things that I'm writing about.

I used to think that eating healthy was ordering a fish sandwich at McDonalds.

'Jack & Diane' was originally about race. I was playing nightclubs, and I was seeing new American couples, mixed-race couples. I thought it was cool. The song was my effort to make a song about that, but of course the record-company guy didn't like it.

I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it.

I went to New York in 1974, to either try to get a record deal, get into the New York Art Student League, or be a dancer. So that was my plan. Some plan. And I had no money.

Go to work and be a Hollywood stud, drive your four wheel drive right into the mud.

Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song.

Life should never be viewed from the vantage point of achievements. It is total folly.

Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun

I just think if the song's good, sing it. I don't care who's doing it. I don't care if it's a country act. I don't care if it's a rock act. If the song's good, sing it.

I'm as left-wing as you can get.

When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions.

Mama, why do I always fall for the crazy ones?

Dear Mr. President, can I ask you a question, when the bombs fall down will they hurt everyone in my family?

What is there to be afraid of? The worst thing that can happen is you fail. So what? I failed at a lot of things. My first record was horrible.

I know a lot of funny people in a lot of funny places.