Quotes from Patty Griffin

Life requires things from you - if you're really living it and are really alive - that are really difficult and painful, and you can't avoid those things if you're really participating.

When you're little, first of all, everybody smiles at you because you're cute, so you think the world is great. And everything is so vivid. You know, you're not clouded out by anxiety, and you don't miss things.

I grew up as a Catholic, and there was so much that was beautiful there, and also so much that was troubling. The whole patriarchal thing, the whole male-dominated approach, really bothered me.

I grew up Catholic, so I have these defenses about listening to anything with too much religiosity; some of the lyrics didn't sit well in my mouth. One of my beefs is the patriarchal setup. Having the 'he, he, he, God, God, God, king, king, king' stuff was hard for me.

You can accept that perception of yourself that you're getting too old to be interesting or buyable. Or you can kind of do what you do and see what happens.

Personality-wise, I'm much more suited to be in a band and part of an ensemble than I am to lead. I never have been comfortable with the leading thing.

Often I have to move my body in a certain way, like exercising, to begin to get into the right rhythm for writing a song.

I think there are times when a song can be a spiritual experience - just making music, in general, is pretty much that.

I avoid subways like the plague because I'm claustrophobic.

I have been told that I have been played at - my music's been played at funerals, deaths, births, weddings. Weddings, I find very surprising.

One of the things that I have learned in the last few years is to stop being so damn critical of my own work.

I was rejected for couple of adverts for sounding too sad. One was for Diet Coke, but it's a good thing it didn't happen because it probably would have been a big blight on my soul. It also happened with a fabric softener called Downy, and I guess the way I sang 'Only Downy' made people weep.

Most people like the sad songs. Some of the oldest songs known to man are sad. Listening to a voice singing something sad is a really great way to help you to feel sad when you need to.

I'm going to be doing solo stuff. The idea is to do 'small' and 'off my beaten path,' or go back to an old, beaten path - do some smaller things that I haven't done in 15 or 20 years. Just to sort of get my feet wet, because I haven't done my own material for a couple of years - I've been doing a lot of other things.

I just started going into my room and literally going into my closet and singing into the clothes. Yeah, the Griffin are a really big family, and so I was trying to just sort of get to sing and experiment without bugging a lot of people.

I was asked to sing with Mavis Staples on a gospel compilation called 'Oh Happy Day.' And, you know, other than being totally intimidated at the prospect of singing with Mavis, I was honored. I don't really have much of a background in gospel music.

From the age of 12, I had an understanding that singing was something I loved to do more than anything, and I did say to myself, 'Why not?' But there were definitely some doubts along the way.

I was brought up to express myself only when asked to express myself, and then to do so in a way that's pleasing to hear. But I've always had a need to make my presence known. I was just sort of born that way, I guess. It's my natural tendency.

You have this life in this body, and it's really fragile. But what you have inside is what you have to offer, and it's just as important as anyone else's.

A lot of things drew me to Texas. One is the wilderness: It's pretty close to wide open spaces, which I didn't grow up around and I love. You don't have to have a lot of money to have a view: The view is the sky, and it's everywhere.

I love Texas itself. The landscape is remarkable. The combination of cultures here is incredible. And the history here is pretty remarkable, too, going back centuries.

Music doesn't have to be fancy. I work hard and enjoy the fact that people want to come to my shows. That's simple, but I'm pretty blue-collar about it.

I learned a lot from hanging out with Emmylou Harris. One of the biggest pointers she gave me was that if you don't know the words, drop the consonants: that way, you'll hide the sound.

I don't always like walking down the street and making sure that I smile and say hello to everybody who's walking their dog in the opposite direction. But I do do it. And it's a small, tiny thing to do. But to me, it means 'I see you. You're not invisible to me.'