Quotes from John Prine

I still enjoy the heck out of getting up there to play shows every night.

I guess what I always found funny was the human condition.

When I'm writing a lyric, things can only get so serious before they start becoming humorous.

Howie Epstein was a kind, patient, and extremely talented musician. He took two years out of his life and dedicated his undivided attention to the making of two of my records. Those records changed my life thanks to Howie.

I'm not good at remembering things, in general.

Ignorance is bliss as a writer, I think.

Along the way, we have had some wonderful adventures and have met thousands of dedicated fans - indeed, many of them feel like family to us now.

I'd rather get a hot dog or a doughnut than write a song.

I didn't hear anybody talking about the plight of a soldier coming back home and what he'd gone through. That was why I wrote about that stuff. If somebody else had done it, I probably wouldn't have touched the subject.

I did three club tours before I started playing concert halls, and the clubs were half full the first time around.

I was kind of shy as a lad, and a lot of things that made me laugh, I found, did not make other people laugh.

I started out in the folk music world only because of the way my songs were written and performed, with just an acoustic guitar, but I always related to the rock n' roll lifestyle.

I had a year-round Christmas tree with nothing but colored vinyl 45s hanging on it, like, old Elvis records and stuff.

Even when I was coming up in the singer-songwriter ranks during the early '70s, I thought that people who were stylists and stuff shoulda still been up on the pedestal. I mean, it's fine to recognize people who write songs, but it kinda got out of hand, you know?

I think the best duets are those where there's a dialogue back and forth, and then the two singers go into a thing together.

Johnny Cash was like Abraham Lincoln to me.

I sound like that old guy down the street that doesn't chase you out of his apple tree.

I don't like to see Christmas trees torn down.

I grew up in Chicago, but I spent a lot of time down in Kentucky, and Kentucky was about 20 years behind the life that was in Chicago.

I used to read a lot of Steinbeck, and I admired Roger Miller and Bob Dylan.

I just like a good, sad song. The sadder, the better. It moves me.

I always feel like every song is the last song.

You know that first love that leaves you? You never forget that, especially if you're a songwriter. I must have gotten nine songs out of that girl.

The Songwriters Hall of fame, that's the one all the big-time writers get into, the really great stuff, the Broadway stuff and all that. That would be something, to get your name in there.